RAXGE BASE OR REFUGE AREAS 41 



with Ethiopian ones, another proof of the complete 

 isolation of the old African fauna. It is impossible to 

 say in what portion of the Saharan region the Palsearctic 

 and Ethiopian faunas intergrade, or whether they do so 

 at all to any appreciable extent, until we possess more 

 complete information respecting the animal life of this 

 profoundly interesting area. Any one reading Mr. 

 Sharpe's recent paper on the distribution of birds 

 {Natural Science, 1893, p. 105) would very naturally 

 infer that the Ethiopian element penetrates into Morocco. 

 That naturalist remarks : " It is a somewhat important 

 fact that a truly Sudanese form like Melierax polyzonns 

 has been found in Mogador and Southern Morocco." In 

 the first place it is an error to describe this bird — one 

 of the chanting Hawks — as strictly Sudanese, seeing 

 that it is distributed over the whole of Africa, except 

 the Desert, the north-coast countries, and Egypt. It is 

 erroneous and misleading thus to infer that the Sudanese 

 element extends to Mogador because this bird has 

 only accidentally strayed into Morocco, as I was 

 assured by the late Mr. Gurney, then our highest 

 authority on the Raptores. As well say with equal 

 propriety that the Nearctic avifauna coalesces with 

 the Palsearctic avifauna in the British Islands because 

 an example say of the Yellow-billed Cuckoo or the 

 American Bittern has been captured in them ! Dr. 

 Wallace, in the latest edition of his Island Life (pp. 396, 

 397), gives a long table of " Eand birds common to 

 Great Britain and Japan," and he is careful to inform us 

 in a footnote that " accidental stragglers are not reckoned 

 as British birds." Yet, incredulous as it may appear, he 

 actually includes such species as the Nutcracker, the 



