CECOLOGICAL 6y 



Accra, is continued practically without a break to the Cameroons, 

 Gaboon and the Congo as far south as the river Coanza in 

 Angola. Inland it extends to the western watershed of the 

 Nile. 



The genera and species of birds peculiar to this sub- 

 region are many, and of these the most interesting are perhaps 

 the Cuckoo-falcon {Baaa cuculoides), and the curious Black 

 and Turkey-like Guinea-fowls of the Genera Phasidus and 

 Agdastcs respectively. 



But beside these, in this sub-region we meet with genera 

 both of Malayan and Indian types. Thus, of Malayan birds 

 the curious Genus Turdinns is represented by several species. 

 The Ant-thrushes {Pittid(e) are eastern types, occurring in 

 greatest plenty in the Indian peninsula and the Himalayas 

 eastwards to China and Formosa, and throughout the Malayan 

 Archipelago as far south as New Guinea and Australia. The 

 Flower-peckers {Diccedce) again are Indian and Malayan forms, 

 but they also occur in West Africa. 



The limits of the Abyssinian Sub-region are by no means 

 well defined, nor are the precise features of its avifauna easily 

 demonstrated, though some 200 or more species are peculiar 

 thereto. The most interesting of these is the bizarre-looking 

 Shoe-billed Stork [Balcsniceps). But perhaps the most interest- 

 ing feature of the birds of this area is the occurrence there, as 

 actual residents of its mountains, of the Alpine and Cornish 

 Choughs ! birds which occur elsewhere only in the Palasarctic 

 Region. Here again is another instance of discontinuous dis- 

 tribution, another instance of the important part played by 

 physical conditions in avian distribution. 



Whether the East and South African Sub-regions will prove 

 to be natural and well-defined areas is open to question. Time 

 may prove that they will have to be ignored. 



The Cameroonian Sub-region is remarkable in many ways, 

 and especially in that it is made up of a series of isolated areas, 

 consisting of the elevated mountains of Central East Africa, and 

 extending north and south from the highlands of the lake 

 regions and across to the peaks of the Cameroons on the west 

 coast! Some of the more remarkable forms met with in this 

 region have already been referred to. 



The Lemurian SMb-region is characterised by a number of 



