IX.] MANTCHURIAN SUB-REGION. 355 



Central Asia, which are equally cold and barren. It seems a 

 reasonable inference that the elevation of the Tibetan plateau 

 dates back to middle Tertiary times. 



" It is of course probable that the elevation was gradual ; and 

 although the area may have been sufficiently high at the close of 

 the Miocene period to produce a difference in climatal conditions, 

 the greater part of the upward movement may have been post- 

 Miocene, and a great part post-Pliocene." 



Bordering as it does upon the tropics, where it abuts against the 

 Oriental region, the Mantchurian sub-region is not 

 easy to define, since the intermingling of Holarctic 

 and Oriental types is very strongly marked on its 

 southern confines. Starting somewhere about the Amur river, it 

 may, however, be taken to include the Japanese islands, Mant- 

 churia, Corea, and northern China ; its southern limit being placed 

 approximately in the latitude of Fuchau. Westwards it may be 

 taken to include Moupin, in Eastern Tibet, although this district 

 is referred by Dr Wallace to the Oriental region. 



From all the other sub-regions, with the exception of the 

 Mediterranean, the Mantchurian is distinguished by the presence 

 of monkeys belonging to the genera Macacus and Semnopithecus, 

 some of these occurring in Japan and others in Eastern Tibet. 

 Of the latter, one (Semnopithecus roxellance) is peculiar, and the 

 other is identified by Mr H. O. Forbes with the widely-spread 

 Oriental Macacus arctoides. Among the Carnivora, the Oriental 

 genus Helictis enters this sub-region, one species occurring in the 

 neighbourhood of Shanghai ; while Japan is the home of a peculiar 

 long-haired dog ( Cants procyonides), which is frequently separated 

 generically under the name of Nyctereutes, although it unquestion- 

 ably pertains to the typical genus. Perhaps, however, the most 

 characteristic mammals are the deer. Foremost among these are 

 a group of small deer belonging to the genus Cenms, and distin- 

 guished from the red deer group by the invariable absence of a 

 bez-tine to the antlers, each of which has but four points. These 

 deer are further characterised by the coat of the adult being 

 spotted in summer with white, but uniformly brown in winter, and 

 also by the black lateral margins to the white blaze on the hind- 

 quarters. The species include the Japanese deer (C. sica), 



232 



