General Distribution.
Neotropical
Sub-regions.		Nearctic
Sub-regions.		Palæarctic
Sub-regions.		Ethiopian
Sub-regions.		Oriental
Sub-regions.		Australian
Sub-regions.
— 2. 3 —1. 2. 3. 41. 2. 3. 41 — 3 —1. 2. 3 —— — — —

The Hares and Rabbits are especially characteristic of the Nearctic and Palæarctic, but are also thinly scattered over the Ethiopian and Oriental regions. In the Neotropical region they are very scarce, only one species being found in South America, in the mountains of Brazil and various parts of the Andes, while one or two of the North American species extend into Mexico and Guatemala. In the Nearctic region, they are most abundant in the central and western parts of the continent, and they extend to the Arctic Ocean and to Greenland. They are found in every part of the Palæarctic region, from Ireland to Japan; three species range over all India to Ceylon, and others occur in Hainan, Formosa, South China, and the mountains of Pegu; the Ethiopian region has only four or five species, mostly in the southern extremity and along the East coast. An Indian species is now wild in some parts of Java, but it has probably been introduced.

Extinct Leporidæ.—Species of Lepus occur in the Post-Pliocene and Newer Pliocene of France; but only in the Post-Pliocene of North America, and the caves of Brazil.

General Remarks on the Distribution of the Rodentia.

With the exception of the Australian region and Madagascar, where Muridæ alone have been found, this order is one of the most universally and evenly distributed over the entire globe. Of the sixteen families which compose it, the Palæarctic region has 10; the Ethiopian, Nearctic, and Neotropical, each 9; and the Oriental only 5. These figures are very curious and suggestive. We know that the rodentia are exceedingly ancient, since some of the living genera date back to the Eocene period; and some ancestral types might thus have reached the remote South American and South African lands at the time of one of their earliest unions with the northern continents. In both these countries the rodents diverged into many special forms, and being small animals easily able to conceal themselves, have largely survived the introduction of higher Mammalia. In the Palæarctic and Nearctic regions, their small size and faculty of hibernation may have enabled them to maintain themselves during those great physical changes which resulted in the extermination or banishment of so many of the larger and more highly organised Mammalia, to which, in these regions, they now bear a somewhat inordinate proportion. The reasons why they are now less numerous and varied in the Oriental region, may be of two kinds. The comparatively small area of that region and its uniformity of climate, would naturally lead to less development of such a group as this, than in the vastly more extensive and varied and almost equally luxuriant Palæarctic region of Eocene and Miocene times; while on the other hand the greater number of the smaller Carnivora in the tropics during the Pliocene and Post-Pliocene epochs, would be a constant check upon the increase of these defenceless animals, and no doubt exterminate a number of them.

The Rodents thus offer a striking contrast to the Ungulates; and these two great orders afford an admirable illustration of the different way in which physical and organic changes may affect large and small herbivorous Mammalia; often leading to the extinction of the former, while favouring the comparative development of the latter.

Order XI.—EDENTATA.

Family 71.—BRADYPODIDÆ. (3 Genera, 12 Species.)

General Distribution.
Neotropical
Sub-regions.		Nearctic
Sub-regions.		Palæarctic
Sub-regions.		Ethiopian
Sub-regions.		Oriental
Sub-regions.		Australian
Sub-regions.
— 2. 3 —— — — —— — — —— — — —— — — —— — — —

The Sloths are a remarkable group of arboreal mammals, strictly confined to the great forests of the Neotropical region, from Guatemala to Brazil and Eastern Bolivia. None are found west of the Andes, nor do they appear to extend into Paraguay, or beyond the Tropic of Capricorn on the east coast. The genera as defined by Dr. Gray in 1871 are:—Cholœpus (2 sp.), "Sloths with two toes on fore limbs, sexes alike," Costa Rica to Brazil; Bradypus (2 sp.), "Sloths with three toes on fore limbs, sexes alike," Central Brazil, Amazon to Rio de Janeiro; Arctopithecus (8 sp.), "Sloths with three toes on fore limbs, males with a coloured patch on the back," Costa Rica to Brazil and Eastern Bolivia (Plate XIV., vol ii. p. [24]).