Mr. P. L. Sclater on Pere David's Travels in China. 171 



Elwes has so well put forward its leading features in his re- 

 cently published article on the geographical distribution of 

 Asiatic birds ^, that I cannot do better than conclude this 

 short notice of Pere David's wonderful discoveries by repeat- 

 ing what Mr. Elwes has said. 



" We now see that the Himalayan range is not, as it seemed 

 to he, an isolated range of mountains, possessing a fauna of 

 its own, but simply the boundary of a vast tract of mountain- 

 ous country extending over the whole of Southern China and 

 Indo-China, and showing, wherever its elevation exceeds about 

 4000 feet, the same pecuHar forms. It is par excellence a 

 region of mountains ; for wherever cultivated plains of low 

 elevation are found, there the birds of the forest and the 

 mountain disappear, and are poorly replaced, as in India and 

 Eastern China, by other more wide-spread and well-known 

 genera. 



"This region is the headquarters of the Phasianidse, the 

 Timaliidse, and Leiotrichinse of Jerdon, and is, compared 

 with most parts of the world, very poor in Raptores and 

 Grallatores. 



"Out of 170 species of birds obtained in Moupin by Pere 

 David, only 9, namely Picoides funebris, Coccothraustes 

 vulgaris, Chlorospiza sinica, Eophona personata, Thaumalea 

 amherstice, Crossoptilon tibetanum, Tetraophasis obscurus, Cho- 

 lornis paradoxa, and a genus allied to Pnoepyga and Troglo- 

 dytes, are of genera not found in the Himalaya ; 61 belong to 

 genera either peculiar to or highly characteristic of those 

 mountains ; only 21, or about 12 per cent., belong to genera 

 common to the whole of the Indo-Malay region, — showing 

 that, as far as our present knowledge extends, Moupin, though 

 not so rich in species as Sikim or Nepal, is, from the absence 

 of a low flat plain like the Terai, a district more characteristic 

 of the Himalo-Chinese subregion than any part of the Hima- 

 laya itself. 



" Among the most curious birds found here may be men- 

 tioned Cholornis paradoxa, Verr., a bird so like Heteromorpha 

 unicolor, Hodgs., that if the feet were cut off" I do not think 

 * P. Z. S. 1873, p. 645. 



