226 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY [part hi. 



extremity of which should perhaps come in the Oriental region. 

 The great richness of this sub-region compared with that of 

 Siberia is well shown by the fact, that a list of all the know n 

 land-birds of East Siberia, including Dahuria and the compara- 

 tively fertile Amoor Valley, contains only 190 species ; whereas 

 Pere David's catalogue of the birds of Northern China with 

 adjacent parts of East Thibet and Mongolia (a very much 

 smaller area) contains for the same families 366 species. Of the 

 Siberian birds more than 50 per cent, are European species, while 

 those of the Manchurian sub-region comprise about half that 

 proportion of land-birds which are identical with those of 

 Europe. 



Japan is no doubt very imperfectly known, as only 134 land- 

 birds are recorded from it. Of these twenty- two are peculiar 

 species, a number that would probably be diminished were the 

 Corea to be explored. Of the genera, only nine are Indo- 

 Malayan, while forty-three are Palsearctic. 



Plate III. — Scene on the Borders of North- West China and 

 Mongolia with Characteristic Mammalia and Birds. — The 

 mountainous districts of Northern China, with the adjacent 

 portions of Thibet and Mongolia, are the head-quarters of the 

 pheasant tribe, many of the most beautiful and remarkable 

 species being found there only. In the north-western provinces 

 of China and the southern parts of Mongolia may be found the 

 species figured. That in the foreground is the superb golden 

 pheasant (Thaumalea picta), a bird that can hardly be surpassed 

 for splendour of plumage by any denizen of the tropics. The 

 large bird perched above is the eared pheasant {Crossoptilon 

 auriium), a species of comparatively sober plumage but of 

 remarkable and elegant form. In the middle distance is Pallas's 

 sand grouse {Syrrhaptes paradoxus), a curious bird, whose native 

 country seems to be the high plains of Northern Asia, but which 

 often abounds near Pekin, and in 1863 astonished European 

 ornithologists by appearing in considerable numbers in Central 

 and Western Europe, in every part of Great Britain, and even 

 m Ireland. 



The quadruped figured is the curious racoon dog (Nyctermtes 



