_Tables of Distribution of Families and Genera._--Having been obliged to construct numerous tables of the distribution of the various groups for the purposes of the descriptive part of the work, I have thought it well to append the most important of them, in a convenient form, to the chapter on each region; as much information will thereby be given, which can only be obtained from existing works at the cost of great labour. All these tables are drawn up on a uniform plan, the same generic and family names being used in each; and all are arranged in the same systematic order, so as to be readily comparable with each other. This, although it seems a simple and natural thing to do, has involved a very great amount of labour, because hardly two authors use the same names or follow the same arrangement. Hence comparison between them is impossible, till all their work has been picked to pieces, their synonymy unravelled, their differences accounted for, and the materials recast; and this has to be done, not for two or three authors only, but for the majority of those whose works have been consulted on the zoology of any part of the globe. Except in the two higher orders--Mammalia and Birds--materials do not exist for complete tables of the genera brought down to the present time. We have given therefore, first, a complete table of all the families of Vertebrata and Diurnal Lepidoptera found in each region, showing the sub-regions in which they occur, and their range beyond the limits of the region. Families which are wholly peculiar to the region, or {178}very characteristic and almost exclusively confined to it, are in _italics_. The number prefixed to each family corresponds to that of the series of families in the Fourth Part of this work, so that if further information is required it can be readily referred to without consulting the index. Names inclosed in parentheses--( . . . ) thus--indicate families which only just enter a region from an adjacent one, to which they properly belong. The eye is thus directed to the more, and the less important families; and a considerable amount of information as to the general features of the zoology of the region, is conveyed in the easiest manner.