2. Tropical Pacific Region.—Characterised by presence of Dipnoi. Chromides and Characinidæ absent.
III. The Southern Zone.—Characterised by absence of Cyprinidæ, and scarcity of Siluridæ. Haplochitonidæ and Galaxiidæ represent the Salmonoids and Esoces of the Northern zone. One region only.
1. Antarctic Region.—Characterised by the small number of species; the fishes of—
a. The Tasmanian sub-region; b. The New Zealand sub-region; c. The Patagonian sub-region;
being almost identical.[19]
In the following detailed account we begin with a description of the equatorial zone, this being the one from which the two principal families of freshwater fishes seem to have spread.
I. Equatorial Zone.
Roughly speaking, the borders of this zoological zone coincide with the geographical limits of the tropical zone, the tropics of the Cancer and Capricorn; its characteristic forms, however, extend in undulating lines several degrees north and southwards. Commencing from the west coast of Africa the desert of the Sahara forms a well-marked boundary between the equatorial and northern zones; as the boundary approaches the Nile it makes a sudden sweep towards the north as far as Northern Syria (Mastacembelus, near Aleppo, and in the Tigris; Clarias and Chromides, in the lake of Galilee); crosses through Persia and Afghanistan (Ophiocephalus), to the southern ranges of the Himalayas, and follows the course of the Yang-tse-Kiang, which receives its contingent of equatorial fishes through its southern tributaries. Its continuation through the North Pacific may be considered to be indicated by the tropic which strikes the coast of Mexico at the southern end of the Gulf of California. Equatorial types of South America are known to extend so far northwards; and by following the same line the West India Islands are naturally included in this zone.
Towards the south the equatorial zone embraces the whole of Africa and Madagascar, and seems to extend still farther south in Australia, its boundary probably following the southern coast of that continent; the detailed distribution of the freshwater fishes of South-Western Australia has been but little studied, but the few facts which we know show that the tropical fishes of Queensland follow the principal water-course of that country, the Murray River, far towards the south and probably to its mouth. The boundary-line then stretches northwards of Tasmania and New Zealand, coinciding with the tropic until it strikes the western slope of the Andes, on the South American Continent, where it again bends southwards to embrace the system of the Rio de la Plata.
The equatorial zone is divided into four regions:—