VII. The distribution of vertebrate animals in India, Ceylon, and Burma

Abstract

Thirty years ago I published a note on the geographical distribution of the Indian fauna, and proposed the division of the Indian Peninsula into certain provinces and sub-provinces distinguished by their zoological characters. Six years later, on the appearance of Wallace’s 'Geographical Distribution of Animals,’ I republished the scheme of geographical classification with a small sketch map. Both papers were merely statements of conclusions, without full details of the facts on which those conclusions were founded. The completion of the Vertebrata in the c Fauna of British India ’ affords an opportunity of reconsidering the whole question, and of reviewing generally the distribution of terrestrial vertebrate animals throughout the British possessions in India, Ceylon, and Burma. For the study of zoological distribution there are few, if any, regions on the earth’s surface that exceed British India and its dependencies in interest. The area is large, nearly 1,800,000 square miles, and although the vertebrate fauna is by no means thoroughly explored, it is well known throughout the greater part of the area, and fairly well throughout the whole ; better probably than in any other tropical and sub-tropical tract of approximately equal extent. The variety of elevation and of climate is remarkable ; the country is bounded on the north by the highest of known mountain ranges, and by the loftiest plateau on the earth’s surface, and it includes within its limits both the almost rainless area of the Sind Desert, and the locality in the Khási Hills distinguished by the heaviest rainfall known. Another element of interest is the fact that the Peninsula of India is a land of great geological antiquity, there being no evidence to show that it has ever been submerged, although the greater part of the Himalayas and Burma have at times been beneath the sea.