GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 351 



collation and comparison before their bearings can be understood. 

 Such results as have been obtained are quite out of proportion to 

 the extent of country whence they have been gathered. As it is, 

 there cannot have been fewer than 800 species observed in what 

 may be deemed to be this Province, but we must bear in mind that 

 the number, even at the very extremity of Africa, is swollen by the 

 inclusion of many which have their home in the Pal^earctic Sub- 

 region, and should be by no means reckoned as belonging to the 

 Ethiopian Region. These are not limited to birds of Avell-known 

 wandering habit like the Turnstone, the Whimbrel, and numerous 

 Limicolx, or those possessing powers of endurance like the CuCKOW 

 or the Nightjar, or of strong and speedy flight as the Swift 

 and the Swallow, but they include many of the more weakly- 

 winged (as commonly considered) of our summer -visitants, the 

 Sedge-bird, the Willow- Wren, the Garden-WARBLER, and others. 

 Nor is this seasonal influx confined to birds of European birth, 

 which need not greatly diverge from their meridian in their 

 journey ; the most eastern part of Asia sends its representatives, of 

 which Erythropus amurensis is a remarkable example. A revised 

 list of South-African Birds has yet to be made out before Ave can 

 state with any accuracy Avhat are to be deemed members of the 

 Caffrarian Avifauna. 



Only one island can with certainty be affiliated to this Province, 

 and that is St. Helena, Avhere the indigenous Land-birds, if any 

 there were, have probably been extirpated with most of its original 

 and peculiar flora. Yet it seems to be a curious fact that this 

 isolated spot possesses a peculiar Water-bird, albeit of a group that 

 greatly affects dry places. This is the so-called Wire-bird, a 

 Ringed Plover, ^gialitis sanctse-helense ; and, though belonging to a 

 genus the meihbers of Avhich are remarkable for very Avide distri- 

 bution, it is not knoAvn to have occurred ofl" the island. Tristan da 

 Cunha, commonly assigned to this Region, and therefore to this 

 Province, seems to have at least as much affinity to the Neotropical, 

 and Ascension appears to have no indigenous Land-birds Avhatever, 

 so that its appropriation must remain in doubt. 



collected the ornithological papers contributed by the late Sir Andrew Smith to 

 The South African Journal between 1830 and 1834, and they were reprinted in 

 1880 by the Willughby Society, but neither these nor the volume containing 

 the Birds in the Illustrations of the Zoology of South Africa, published by that 

 excellent naturalist (London : 1838 - 1849) give a connected account of the 

 ornithology of this Province. The most comprehensive work is that by Mr. 

 Layard before mentioned, and next to it Andersson's Notes on the Birds of 

 Damara Land (London : 1872), edited by the late Mr. Gurney, who also com- 

 municated to The Ibis a long series of valuable articles on the Birds of Natal 

 based on the observations and collections of Mr. Ayres. Finally may be men- 

 tioned the Beitrdge zur Ornithologie Sudafricas, by HH. Holub and von 

 Pelzeln (Wien : 1882). 



