348 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 



Further subdivision seems only possible in the case of the first 

 of these four Provinces above named — the Libyan, which may 

 perhaps be broken up into four subprovinces — an Arabian, an 

 Egyptian, an Abyssinian, and a Gambian; but no boundaries can be 

 assigned for any but the first, and that has precisely the fewest 

 possible characteristics, so that the propriety of its recognition, 

 except on purely geographical grounds, is most questionable. We 

 may doubt whether it has more than half a dozen peculiar species 

 if we exclude from the number those of the Ghor, or the valley of 

 the Jordan and the depressed basin of the Dead Sea, which we 

 must regard as an outlier of the Province ; but then we know very 

 little of the zoology of any part of Arabia, save the peninsula of 

 Sinai, the desert of the Tih, and a few places on the sea-coast.^ The 

 species of Birds which seem to be peculiar to the Jordan basin are 

 said to be eleven in number, ^ many of them showing Indian consan- 

 guinity, though the Ethiopian element on the whole predominates, 

 and especially in Amijdrus tristrami, the name of which commemor- 

 ates the naturalist to whom we owe most of our information as 

 to the Fauna of this singular district. 



The Egyptian subprovince, so far "as regards the valley of the 

 Lower Nile, is remarkable for being overrim by migrants from the 

 north during the winter, and since it is chiefly from the observa- 

 tions of travellers at this season that most of our knowledge is 

 derived, it is perhaps not very wonderful that some zoogeographers 

 have included this district within the Palaearctic area. But a little 

 reflexion will shew that to obtain a right estimate of the Fauna of 

 any country we should take count of the animals which are its 

 natives and have their home there rather than of those which resort 

 to it as visitors, Vidthout remaining to breed within its limits. Now 

 the number of species of Birds which appear in Egypt and Nubia, 

 as given by Captain Shelley,^ who is still the latest and best author- 

 ity, is 352, though many of tljem, he says, are of doubtful occur- 

 rence. Of these more than 230 are natives of the Paleearctic 

 Subregion, but only between 50 and 60, or about one-quarter of 

 them, remain to breed in Egypt, and of this number a considerable 

 proportion do not breed in Europe, but only in the Barbary States. 

 The Palsearctic species, which are only winter- visitors, to the number 

 say of 1 80, should therefore be left out of the reckoning. On the other 

 hand, more than 70 species, which are not Palsearctic, are true 



^ Considering our ignorance of tlie Fauna of Arabia, I have not been able to 

 see why Mr. Wallace assigned the northern extratropical portion of it to the 

 Palsearctic area. With our present want of information, any line of demarcation 

 drawn across the country must he purely arbitrary, for I am not aware of any 

 evidence favouring such a division. 



- Tristram, Fauna and. Flora of Palestine (pref. pp. ix. x.) London : 1884. 



^ Handbook to the Birds of Egypt. London : 1872. 



