XXVm INTRODUCTION. 



been created as distinct species, and their place on earth 

 fixed for them. "We rarely find one trespassing far on 

 the limits of the other, but, where they do so meet, hy- 

 brids are not uncommon, but such hybrids do not appear 

 to spread beyond the district where the two meet. As 

 far as our brief experience goes, geographic distribution 

 is against Mr. Darwin's Theory. To give one example, 

 Malacocircus striatus of Ceylon is more allied to M. benga- 

 lensis of Bengal, than to M. malabaricus, which is spread 

 throughout a vast region between those provinces. Other 

 examples will occur to the Indian Ornithologist. In a 

 vast province like India, we have numerous instances of 

 very closel}^ allied races or species, especially when we 

 compare the birds of India proper with those of the 

 countries to the East of the Bay of Bengal ; and many 

 representative species, as Mr. Blyth aptly calls them, are 

 found in Northern and Southern India, and in the Burmese 

 countries ; in some cases, extending to a fourth race in 

 Malayan a. 



Mr. Blyth has written a highly interesting paper on the 

 variation of affined species, from wliich I extract the 

 following remarks : — 



Some species difi'er only in size, as the Golden Plovers 

 of Europe, America and Australia, the Cotton Teal, Net- 

 apus coromandelicus, and N. bicolor, respectively, of India 

 and Australia ; Buceros albirostris, and B. afFmis; Alcedo 

 ispida, and A. bengalensis, &c., &c. : or, with exact simi- 

 larity of size and proportion, they may difi'er more or less 

 in colour, as the difi'erent species of Asiatic Treron (Green 

 Pigeons with yellow feet), e. g., T. pli^Enicoptera, of Bengal 

 and upper India, T. chlorigaster, of S. India and Ceylon, and 

 T. viridifrons, of Burmah; also the species or races of black- 

 headed Munia, as iM. sinensis, of the Malayan Peninsula, 



