134 SCLATER ON THE GENERAL DISTRIBUTION OF AYES. 



belonging to temperate regions, and such as extend themselves 

 only through the northern portion of the New World, failing 

 entirely before we reach Tropical and Southern America, the most 

 really characteristic region of Neogean Ornithology. 



Such is the case in the genera Sitta, Certhia, Regulus, Partis, 

 Lanius, Perisoreus, Pica, Corvus and Loxia. No member of these 

 genera (which are common to the temperate portions of both 

 hemispheres) extends farther south in the New "World than the 

 Table-land of Mexico. They are all quite foreign to Neotropical 

 (Tropical American) Ornithology, although in the Old World most 

 of them reach the tropics. 



Having, therefore, made our first territorial division that of the 

 two worlds, agreeing so far with geographers, we will look at the 

 great continent and Australia en masse, and see what are its most 

 natural subdivisions. 



Here we find ourselves at once at issue with ordinary geogra- 

 phers. Europe may be a very good continent of itself, in many 

 ways, and in some respects worth all the rest of the world put to- 

 gether, — ^^ Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay,'' says 

 the Poet, — but it is certainly not entitled to rank as one of the 

 primary zoological regions of the earth's surface, any more than 

 as one of the physical divisions. Europe and Northern Asia are 

 in fact quite inseparable. So far as we are acquainted with the 

 ornithology of Japan — the eastern extremity of the temperate por- 

 tion of the great continent, we there find no striking difierences 

 from the European Avi-fauna, but rather repetitions of our best- 

 known European birds in slightly altered plumage, — representa- 

 tives in fact of the European types. Temminck, indeed, has stated, 

 that there are no less than 114 birds found in Japan, identical 

 with European species. Some of these, however, have been since 

 ascertained to be apparently distinct, but there can be no ques- 

 tion as to the general strong resemblance of the Japanese Avi- 

 fauna to that of Europe. How far south we are to extend the 

 boundaries of this great temperate region of the Old World can 



which no differences have, as yet, been detected in the comparison of specimens 

 from the Old and Netv worlds, viz.: — 



Cotyle riparia. Luiota Hnaria. 



Ampelis garrnla. Plectrophanes nivalis. 



Junco hyemalis. Plectrophanes lapponica. 



Linota borealis. Loxia leucoptera. 



The whole of these (with exception of Cotifle rlparln) range to the extreme 

 north, where the two worlds almost unite. 



