288 Mr. W. T. Blanford on the African 



distinctions are slighter and the generic affinities more com- 

 plicated. Secondly, the power of flight gives birds peculiar 

 facilities for extending their range ; and it is only natural that 

 many forms should straggle into the province from the neigh- 

 bouring Himalayas, the Assam hills, and the Malabar region. 

 Hence in parts of the Bengal and Madras subprovinces a few 

 ]\Ialay forms are found which do not occur elsewhere in India. 

 Moreover certain species are to be met Avith, on hills which 

 rise to a considerable height, even in Central India. Thus 

 Myiophonus HorsJiehU has been found in Sirguja on Main 

 Pat, at Chikalda in Berar, at Pachmari, and at Mount Abii, 

 all of them hills rising to about 4000 feet or more above the 

 sea. At one of these localities, Chikalda, liypsipetes ganeesa 

 was also shot, and it is said the typically and peculiarly Mala- 

 bar genus Ochromela was seen. To include the birds found 

 on these very few isolated hill-tops in a list of the general 

 fauna of the suiTOunding country gives a completely false 

 idea. Is Fregilus gracuhis to be included in the forms charac- 

 teristic of the Ethiopian fauna because it inhabits the moun- 

 tains of Abyssinia ? I have not time at present to enter into 

 the subject of these isolated remnants of a fauna which once in 

 all probability was more extensively diffused, thougli I by no 

 means think it inhabited the whole of India. It certainly, 

 however, must be omitted in estimating the fauna of the sur- 

 rounding country. 



Mr. Wallace gives a list of eighty -four Oriental genera of 

 birds found in Central India. Now, of these, twelve, viz. 

 Layardia^ Garrulax, Trochalopteron^ Alcij)pe, Hypsipetes (with 

 the exception mentioned above), Irena, Arachnotkera, Hemi- 

 circuSjMuUeripicus^Nyctiorms, BatracJiostomuSy and Collocalia^ 

 have never been found, so far as I am aware, in the Indian 

 peninsula, except in the Malabar province; three others, Hemi- 

 chelidon^ Niltava^ and Perdix are not known to occur south of 

 the Himalayas, the last named, as generally restricted, being- 

 found no nearer than Tibet, and not being an Oriental genus 

 at all. Mr. Wallace probably includes Perdicula in Perdix. 

 This, however, is, so far as known, a form peculiar to India 

 and Ceylon, the Timor P. Raalteni being ajoparently but 

 dubiously affined. 



Of the remaining genera, twenty-one, viz. Ahrornis (one 

 species only, A. cantator)^ Larvivora, HemipuSj Pellorneum^ 

 Dendrophila, Chihia, Cliaptia^ Nectar opMla^ Dicceum, EalabeSj 

 Nemoricolaj Gecinus^ Tiga^ Micropternus, Rhopodytes, Surni- 

 culus, HarpacteSy Ceyx, Hydrocissa, Carpophaga, and Chalco- 

 phaps, are not, to the best of my knowledge, found outside 

 the Bengal and Madras subprovinces ; and I suspect Megalurus 



