On rare Species of Larvivora from China. 621 
it was with great trepidation that I took up my pen to 
make the few suggestions noted above on the method of the 
feeding of the Snipe, but I hope that they may be of some 
interest to the Members of our Union, many of whom are 
both sportsmen and naturalists, as they deal with a bird 
with which they are so familiar, aud on which so much has 
already been written. 
XXXV.—On some rare Species of the Genus Larvivora from 
China. By Ernst Harrert, Ph.D. 
(Plate XIII.) 
Fasy as it is to define the area of the Palearctic faunal region 
in some parts—as, for example, in the west, where the Sahara 
(especially as its interior is not yet zoologically explored) 
forms a most convenient boundary, and between Tibet and 
India, where the enormous chain of mountains called the 
Himalayas effects a natural separation,—this becomes very 
difficult in other countries, and, 1a fact, most intricate in 
China, where, at least in the more eastern parts, no sharp line 
of division exists at all. Every addition to our knowledge of 
the interior of China is therefore extremely welcome. Much 
has been lately added by Messrs. La Touche, Styan, and 
Rickett, who have written valuable articles in the recent 
volumes of ‘ The Ibis’ ; but much more remains to be done. 
The mountain-chain known as the “ Tsin-ling,” crossing 
China in a direction from west to east, is comparatively 
little explored. Nearly all we know of it is what has been 
effected by Bianchi and other Russian ornithologists, as the 
results of the explorations of Berezowski and other Russian 
travellers in Southern Kansu. It was therefore with great 
satisfaction that Mr. Rothschild acquired for the Tring 
Museum a collection offered by Mr. Alan Owston, which had 
been made on Mt. Tai-pai-shan in the Tsin-ling Mountains. 
‘This collection is very large, but sufficient attention has 
apparently not been paid to the small and inconspicuous forms 
which it contains ; nevertheless, there are rare and even un- 
known species among them. A special interest is attached to 
