GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION 349 
natives of Egypt,! and among them members of some 8 or 10 
good genera, not a species of which rightly belongs to the northern 
area—such as Nectarinia, Chrysococcyz, Centropus, Qtogs yps, Tantalus, 
Ibis, Chenalopex, Eupodotis, Pluvianus, and Rhyncheca,” “The Ethiopian 
character of the truly Egyptian Avifauna seems to be thus fully 
established. 
Respecting the Abyssinian subprovince very full particulars are 
included in the work of Von Heuglin,” supplemented as regards 
Shoa, by the labours of Count T. Salvadori,? based upon the 
explorations of Antinori and Dr. Ragazzi, but the precise features 
of its Avifauna are not easily ascertained from the former, since he 
has not discriminated between it and the Egyptian. Still it would 
seem that nearly 220 species may be peculiar to this part of the 
subprovince, and among them that most wonderful form Balzniceps 
(SHOE-BILL). A remarkable feature in the Abyssinian Avifauna is the 
occurrence there, not as migrants but as actual natives of its moun- 
tains, of several birds which would otherwise be deemed purely 
Palearctic, as, for example, both the Cornish and the Alpine 
CHoucH (Fregilus). The presence of these northern forms in the 
Abyssinian highlands induced a hope that some of them might 
extend to the still loftier lands of Kilima-njaro and its neighbouring 
heights, which would therefore have to be included in the sub- 
province, but that hope has been disappointed by the zoological 
survey of Mr. Johnston (Proc. Zool. Soc. 1885, pp. 219-239), which 
unfortunately produced nothing of the kind. Indeed, it seems as 
if we might suspect that the Fauna of this district, which reaches 
the highest elevation in Africa, may have greater affinity to, if it 
be not practically identical with that of the Caffrarian Province far 
away to the southward. ‘To the Abyssinian subprovince, however, 
must probably be assigned the island of Socotra, whereon out of 
two dozen species that have been observed, one-third—and all 
of them Passeres—seem to be peculiar, two of them belonging to a 
peculiar genus Rhynchostruthus. 
Of the Gambian subprovince not much is to be said. M. de 
Rochbrune* has enumerated 686 species of Birds as occurring in 
the French portion of it, but none of them are peculiar, while 423, 
or more than sixty per cent., seem to be common to the north-east 
of Africa, 112 to the Gaboon district, and 274 to Angola, thus 
leading directly to the Province next to be mentioned. But to the 
Gambian subprovince belong the Cape Verd Islands, which out of 
1 There can be hardly a doubt that this number would be increased were 
further researches carried on during the breeding-season. 
2 Ornithologie Nordost Afrika’s. Cassel: 1859-1875. 
3 Uccelli dello Scioa. Genova: 1884 ; and Catalogo di una collezione di Uccelli 
dello Scioa. Genova: 1888. 
4 Faune de la Sénégambie, Oiseaux. Paris: 1884. 
