Birds observed in Kamchatka. 277 



the woods, strikes him lorcibly as a fact which needs some 

 explanation. This astonishment is increased by a glance at 

 the long lists of absentees tabled by Dr. Stejneger. At the 

 mouth of the Amoor river (in latitudes which overlap those of 

 Kamchatka) occur representatives of 40 or 45 genera, some of 

 them so familiar, as Fulica, Ardea, Tetrao, Columba, Milvus, 

 Alcedo, Upvpa, lynx, Garrulus, FringiUa {spinus*), Passer, 

 Certhia, Accentor f, and Regulus, yet all these widely- 

 distributed genera are absent from Kamchatka, Some of 

 these genera, as well as others, such as Botaurus, Turtur, 

 Milvus, Colosus, and Cinclus, occur commonly in Northern 

 Japan and on the western shores of the Okhotsk Sea, in 

 latitudes north of the Uda river, yet they have not reached 

 Kamchatka. Others, such as Vanellus, Rallus, Coturnix, 

 Circus, Caprivndgus, Sturnus, Cotile, TrogJodytesX, and 

 Pratincola, occur in jSorthern Japan without reaching 

 Kamchatka ; yet a glance at the list of birds found in the 

 peninsula shows at once that it is not the severity of climate 

 that excludes most of the above genera. 



Dr. Stejneger finds an explanation in the fact that " the 

 climatological and physical conditions of the part connecting 

 it [the Kamchatkan Peninsula] with the continent are such 

 as to make it a true island, zoologically speaking." The 

 flat country (w rongly marked as mountainous on some maps) 

 which lies just north of Kamchatka is so low that a very 

 slight submergence would sink it beneath the waves, while 

 there is much evidence of a recent upheaval of the whole 

 region, including the Commander Islands, and to the latter 

 part of this sentence I can myself bear witness. To such an 

 island the Kuril chain, barren at least in its northern links, 

 would not form a very enticing series of stepping-stones, and 

 it is not surprising that no very regular use of these islands 



* I thought I saw this bird at Tareinski Harbour. 



t The occuiTence oi A. montanellus at Karaginski Island, on the very 

 north-eastern boundary of Kamchatka, rather adds to thau deducts from 

 the pecuharity of its distribution. 



X Occurs, however, on the Commander Islands, at a distance of only 

 about 97 miles from Cape Kamchatka, the nearest point of the Kam- 

 chatkan coa.st. 



