192 THE STORY OF BIRD-LIFE. 



by those more ancient, and naturally circum- 

 scribed areas which we know as continents and 

 islands. 



Yet it is a fact that certain kinds of animals — 

 using this word in its proper sense — are only 

 found in certain parts of the world. To confine 

 ourselves to birds : We go for instance to Africa 

 for secretary-birds and touracous, or to South 

 America for toucans and humming-birds. And 

 so we get a notion that the sharply defined 

 political distinctions, Indian, African, Chinese 

 or European, are synonymous with real, natural 

 boundaries, each with its peculiar groups of birds 

 and beasts. 



To a certain extent this is true. To Dr 

 Sclater is due the credit of having first shown 

 us the real inwardness of this distribution. 

 He proposed the recognition of six zoo-geo- 

 graphical regions, determined according to 

 the nature of the bird fauna inhabiting the 

 same. They are the Palsearctic, Ethiopian, 

 Indian, Australian, Nearctic and l!^eotropical 

 regions. 



The Palaearctic region includes Europe, Africa 

 and Arabia, north of the Tropic of Cancer, the 

 whole of Asia, except India, Burma and South- 

 East China, together with Japan, Iceland, the 

 Azores and Cape de Verde Islands. The grouse, 

 pheasants, and capercailzies, long-tailed titmice, 

 robins, magpies and bullfinches are the character- 

 istic birds of this region. 



The Ethiopian region includes Africa, south of 

 the Sahara, Madagascar and Arabia, south of 

 the Tropic of Cancer. The ostrich, touracou, 



