Climate, as distinct from temperature, establishes limits of distribution. The animals of Eastern North America accustomed to a humid atmosphere cannot live in the dry plains and deserts of the West. Closely associated with climate is the nature of the plant-growth covering the land; here are forests and luxuriant meadows, there are sparse tough grasses of the dry plateau. The limits of a special kind of plant-growth often are the limits of distribution of certain animals. The third great barrier, the ocean, is perhaps the most obvious of all in its influence. It is only in rare cases that any land-animal can independently cross a great ocean. Thus the land-animals of Australia differ from those of all other countries, and those of Africa and South America have developed almost independently of one another. The ocean is, as already mentioned, also a barrier for fresh-water aquatic animals, and even marine fishes which live normally in shallow waters along the shore rarely venture across the great depths of mid-ocean. The obstacles or barriers met with determine the limits of a species. Each species broadens its range as far as it can. It attempts unwittingly, through natural processes of increase, to overcome the obstacles of ocean or river, of mountain or plain, of woodland or prairie or desert, of cold or heat, of lack of food or abundance of enemies--whatever the barriers may be. The degree of hindrance offered by any barrier differs with the nature of the animal trying to pass it. That which forms an impassable obstacle to one species may be a great aid to the spread of another. "The river which blocks the monkey or the cat is the highway of the fish and turtle. The waterfall which limits the ascent of the trout is the chosen home of the ouzel." =Faunæ and zoogeographic areas.=--The term _fauna_ is applied to the animals of any region considered collectively. Thus the fauna of Illinois includes the entire list of animals found naturally in that State. The fauna of a schoolyard comprises all the animals found living naturally in the yard. The fauna of a pond includes all the animal inhabitants of the pond. (_Flora_ is used similarly of all the plants in a given region.) The relation of one fauna to another depends on the character and effectiveness of the barriers between, and the physical character of the two regions. Thus the fauna of Illinois differs but little from that of Indiana or Iowa, because there are no barriers between the States, and they are alike physically. On the other hand the fauna of California differs much from that of the Eastern States because of the great barriers (the desert and the Sierra Nevada Mountains) which lie between it and these States, and because of the great differences in the physical and climatic conditions of the two regions.