The West Indies are less clearly Neotropical, their poverty in mammals as well as in most other groups being extreme, while great numbers of North American birds migrate there in winter. The resident birds, however, comprise trogons, sugar-birds, chatterers, with many humming-birds and parrots, representing eighteen peculiar Neotropical genera; a fact which decides the region to which the islands belong.
South temperate America is also very poor as compared with the tropical parts of the region, and its insects contain a considerable proportion of north temperate forms. But it contains armadillos, cavies and opossums; and its birds all belong to American groups, though, owing to the inferior climate and deficiency of forests, a number of the families of birds peculiar to tropical America are wanting. Thus there are no manakins, chatterers, toucans, trogons, or motmots; but there are abundance of hang-nests, tyrant-birds, ant-thrushes, tree-creepers, and a fair
proportion of humming-birds, tanagers and parrots. The zoology is therefore thoroughly Neotropical, although somewhat poor; and it has a number of peculiar forms of strictly Neotropical types—as the chinchillas, alpacas, &c., which are not found in the tropical regions except in the high Andes.
Comparison of Zoological Regions with the Geographical Divisions of the Globe.—Having now completed our survey of the great zoological regions of the globe, we find that they do not differ so much from the old geographical divisions as our first example might have led us to suppose. Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, North America, and South America, really correspond, each to a zoological region, but their boundaries require to be modified more or less considerably; and if we remember this, and keep their extensions or limitations always in our mind, we may use the terms "South American" or "North American," as being equivalent to Neotropical and Nearctic, without much inconvenience, while "African" and "Australian" equally well serve to express the zoological type of the Ethiopian and Australian regions. Europe and Asia require more important modifications. The European fauna does indeed well represent the Palæarctic in all its main features, and if instead of Asia we say tropical Asia we have the Oriental region very fairly defined; so that the relation of the geographical with the zoological primary divisions of the earth is sufficiently clear. In order to make these relations visible to the eye and more easily remembered, we will put them into a tabular form:
| Regions. | Geographical Equivalent. |
| Palæarctic | Europe, with north temperate Africa and Asia. |
| Ethiopian | Africa (south of the Sahara) with Madagascar. |
| Oriental | Tropical Asia, to Philippines and Java. |
| Australian | Australia, with Pacific Islands, Moluccas, &c. |
| Nearctic | North America, to North Mexico. |
| Neotropical | South America, with tropical N. America and W. Indies. |
The following arrangement of the regions will indicate their geographical position, and to a considerable extent their relation to each other.
N e a r c t i c--P a l æ a r c t i c | | |
| | Oriental | Ethiopian |
Neo- |
Tropical Australian