The natural division of the subregion is that into an African and a Madagascar province.
So large a portion of the Ethiopian subregion lies between the tropics that no surprise need be expressed at the richness of its fauna relatively to that of the last two subregions we have considered.
Besides the three larger islands numerous satellites belong to the subregion, as Lord Howe, Norfolk and Kermadec islands, with the Chatham, Auckland and Macquarie groups.
Its most distinctive characteristic is the presence of the birds of paradise, which are almost peculiar to it; for, granting that the bower-birds, Chlamydodera and others, of Australia, belong to the same family, they are far less highly specialized than the beautiful and extraordinary forms which are found, within very restricted limits, in the various islands of the subregion.
Of these 128 are common to the Nearctic subregion.
