VI. J 



KAMSCHATKAN BIRDS. 113 



and notices a familiar-looking wagtail running along the well- 

 trodden paths of the settlement. Overhead, maybe, hovers some 

 bird of prey, which he may recognise as an Osprey or a Hobby ; 

 and as he shoots his first gTOuse, or notes a woodpecker tapping 

 at a tree hard by, he identifies them, or at least thinks he identifies 

 them, with like species he has met with in his own or some 

 iSTorwegian wood. 



In the majority of cases he is right. In others he is, at all 

 events, not far wrong. Foi', in consequence of the similarity of 

 the fauna which extends over the whole of Europe and Northern 

 Asia, zoologists have been led to group these countries together 

 under the name of the Pala?arctic Eegion, and the species which are 

 common alike to Great Britain and Eastern Siberia are numerous. 

 Kamschatka abounds with birds of wide range with which the 

 European traveller is quite familiar, but its peninsular position has 

 at the same time had a certain influence towards the creation of 

 representative forms, among which those of the Great and Lesser 

 Spotted Woodpecker,^ the Capercailzie, and the Marsh Tit may 

 especially be instanced. In all these the differences consist for the 

 most pait in the greater predominance of white in the plumage, 

 and this tendency to albidism is noticeable, as I have already 

 mentioned, in other animals besides the birds ; the dogs and horses 

 likewise showing it in a marked degi'ee. 



We wasted some time of the morning of August 28th in track- 

 ing a large bear that Afanasi had wounded on the previous evening. 



1 Picusin2}ra, the eastern form of our P. minor, is found over the greater part of 

 Siberia, and even in Japan. Kamschatkan individuals are noticeable as exhibiting 

 the characteristics of the species in a more marked degree than those of the adjoining 

 continent. In the same way the P. major of the peninsula differs from that of 

 Europe, and has recently been raised to specific rank by Dr. Stejneger as Dendrocojws 

 jmrus. It diSers "in having the breast and upper abdomen very pure Avhite, the 

 white of the lateral rec trices without, or almost ^^-ithout, dark markings, and 

 possessing a white spot on the outer web of the longest primaries near the tip." The 

 specimens that we obtained in our journey through the country bear out this descrip- 

 tion except in the last-named particular. Both these woodpeckers were comparatively 

 common in the country round Gunal. 



VOL. I. I 



