338 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



3 ; Sturniclx, Panwidse, Ixidse and Sylviidx, 1 each ; Timeliidse and 

 Phaslanidse, 2 each ; and " Fterodeidse " ^ and Anatidx, 1 apiece.- 

 The Mediterranean Province appears to have peculiar to it 4 

 genera of Sylviidx, and 1 genus of Laridx; but some 23 more 

 belong to it and to no other part of the Subregion, though having 

 a wider range outside of the latter. Of these, 8 are common to the 

 Ethiopian and Indian Regions, while confined to the former and the 

 Province are 11, and having the same relation to the latter 2. 

 Finally, it has a genus of Anatidse, Erismatura, which is represented 

 in Australia and America, as well as in Africa. 



The Atlantic Islands,^ Avhich must be regarded as belonging to 

 the Mediterranean Province, ofier some peculiarities of great interest. 

 First we have the Azores, the subject of an excellent monograph b}'' 

 Mr. Frederick Godman,* who shews that there is a general tendency 

 among their birds to vary more or less from their continental repre- 

 sentatives, especially in having almost always a darker plumage, a 

 stouter bill and stronger legs, and in one instance, a Bullfinch, 

 Pyrrliula murina, the variation justifies its specific distinction. The 

 same tendency is not so observable in the Madeiras, but these have 

 at least two peculiar species, and recent researches in the Canaries ^ 

 prove that there difierentiation is carried on to a still greater extent, 

 and that certain local forms are often confined to a particular island, 

 while again there are some species that occur in all the islands "\vith 

 little or no sensible variation. It is almost indubitably proved that 

 all those groups have been colonized from the mainland of the 

 Mediterranean Province, and the changes which the colonists have 

 undergone may be in some cases a measure of the period that has 

 elapsed since one species after another has settled upon them. In 

 no case does the colonization of Land-birds seem to be very ancient, 



- By strict rule, this Family should be called Syrrhaptidse, Syrrhaptes being 

 the earliest-named genus belonging to it. But one species of this genus overran 

 Europe in astonishing numbers in 1863 and again in 1888, both times bi'eeding in 

 its new-found quarters (see Sand-Grouse). 



2 Information on the ornithology of this Province gathered by recent Russian 

 travellers has been mostly published in their own language. Nevertheless, Dr. 

 Severzov's notes on the Birds of Turkestan have been rendered into English by 

 Me.ssrs. Cramers and Dresser {Ibis, 1875, pp. 96, 236, 332 ; and 1876, jip. 77, 171, 

 319, 410), and an English translation by the former of those gentlemen of the 

 ornithological portion of Prjevalsky's travels was given by the late Mr. Rowley in 

 his Ornithological Miscellany, vols. ii. and iii. 



^ Among these Mr. Wallace groups the Cape-Verd Islands ; but whatever 

 may be the case with other Glasses of animals, their Birds shew a preponderance 

 of Ethiopian forms, and here they must be referred to that Region. 



* Natural History of the Azores or Western Islands. London : 1870. 

 {(% 5 E. G. Mead^-Waldf, Ibis, 1889, pp. 1-13, 503-520 ; 1890, pp. 429-438 ; H. B. 



Tristram, op. cit. 1889, pp. 13-32 ; and A. Kbnig, Journ. fiir Orn. 1889, pp. 199, 

 263 ; 1890, pp. 257-488, tabb. i.-viii. 



