GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



335 



southern lias been termed the " Mongolian." Where the line just 

 indicated may reach the continent of Asia is as yet very doubtful. 

 Some would make it round the Corean peninsula ; but a careful 

 scrutiny of all that is known of the ornithology of that country, as 

 stated by Professors Giglioli and Salvador!, and the late Dr. 

 Taczanowski,^ forbids it being so drawn, and there seems a prob- 

 ability of the Stannovoi first, and then the Altai Mountains 

 marking their respective limits, while further inland the great deserts 

 can scarcely fail to interpose a barrier almost impassable for 

 resident birds. The " Mongolian " Province may be taken to 

 extend between the frontiers thus vaguely sketched until it reaches 

 the eastern coast of the Casj^ian Sea, but the chain of mountains that 

 forms the western continuation of the Himalayas, separates it from a 

 third Province, which, beginning on the shores of the Gulf of Oman, 

 includes the rest of Asia, all the portion of Africa that lies in the 

 Palfearctic Subregion, as well as the three great European penin- 

 sulas, so that the northern boundaries of its western part would be 

 the Pyrenees, the Alps, and the Balkan range. Looking to the 

 importance of the sea Avhich penetrates this Province more than 

 half way from west to east, the name " Mediterranean " may not 

 inaptly be conferred upon it. The rest of Europe, having an Avifauna, 

 as all will admit, differing enough from the " Mediterranean," will 

 form another Province, and though on its eastern side it might well 

 have a more decided boundary, we must accept the Ural Mountains 

 for want of a better, and the Kirghiz Desert, while the Caspian Sea, 

 the Caucasus, and the Euxine complete its circuit on the south. 



That a desert should form, as just hinted, a proper boundary to 

 a Fauna will not be gainsaid by any one who takes the trouble to 

 consider what is thereby meant. It will be enough to point out 

 that the southern border of the western portion of the Paliearctic 

 Subregion has, in the Great Desert of Africa, commonly known as 

 the Sahara, a boundary hardly inferior to a coast-line in the precision 

 with which it may be laid down, and in the influence which it exerts. 

 That indeed may be an extreme instance, but the existence of many 

 others more or less nearly approaching it is certain. Moreover, some 

 of these are likely to lead to a misapprehension, against which it is 

 advisable to guard the unwary, and in no part of the world more 

 so than in relation to that now under consideration. It is well 



1 The list of Corean birds by the first two authorities {Froc. Zool. Soc. 1887, 

 pp. 580-596) consists wholly of species, chiefly Water-birds, obtained at a season 

 when the migrants from the north would predominate over the actual natives ■ 

 and hence, though of value in some other respects, fails to shew the real character 

 of the Avifauna of Corea. If the lists of the third writer (op. cit. 1887, pp. 596-611 ; 

 1888, pp. 450-469) be closely examined, it will be seen that, though he ascribes a 

 Siberian character to the avifauna, the species obtained by the collector in spring 

 or summer, and these are of course the natives, belong to the Chinese Fauna. 



