524 Mr. P. L. Sclater on the Geographical 



line between the Mantchurian Subregion and the adjacent 

 northern part of the Oriental Region, to which Southern 

 China should probably be referred. But as the greater part 

 of the Chinese Empire must be referred to the Mantchurian 

 Subregion, we must mention under this head David and 

 Oustalet's ' Oiseaux de la Chine ^ (24), which furnishes us 

 with a complete resume o^ Chinese Ornithology. It embraces 

 descriptions of nearly 800 species, and the atlas of plates 

 which accompanies it, if not of first-rate artistic merit, is 

 most useful to the student. Since the lamented death of 

 Swinhoe, the pioneer of Chinese Ornithology in its modern 

 sense, and the publication of the above-named work, there 

 has been a slight lull in the progress of our knowledge of 

 Chinese Ornithology. But several English Ornithologists, 

 amongst whom we may mention Messrs. Seebohm, Slater, 

 and Styan (25-27), have recently taken up the subject, in 

 which, indeed, there is ample room for a large number of 

 investigators. 



5. The Japanese Subregion. 

 As regards Japan I shall content myself on the present 

 occasion by calling attention to Mr. Seebohm's ' Birds of the 

 Japanese Empire'' (28), issued last year, which gives a capital 

 summary of this subject in a compact and handy form. It 

 is hard to please everybody, and a rival Ornithologist on the 

 other side of the Atlantic has found much fault with Mr. See- 

 bohra^s unpretending volume. I venture, however, to give ray 

 opinion that its defects are far overbalanced by its obvious 

 merits, although no doubt more complete descriptions of the 

 species and a more ample synonymy would have added much 

 to the value of the work. Mr. Seebohm is now extending 

 his researches to the little-known ij^land-groups of the 

 Japanese Empire, where there remain many discoveries to 

 be made (29). 



6. The Tartarian Subregion. 



Of this district, which embraces the great interior high 



plateau of Central Asia, the illustrious travellers Prjevalsky 



