664 MR. H.J. EL/WES ON THE GEOGRAPHICAL [June 1 7, 



hard to account for, viz. that the animals of Formosa should be, 

 almost without exception, generically the same as those of the 

 Himalaya. 



We now see that the Himalayan range is not, as it seemed to be, 

 an isolated range of mountains, possessing a fauna of its own, but 

 simply the boundary of a vast tract of mountainous country extend- 

 ing over the whole of Southern China and Indo-China, and showing, 

 wherever its elevation exceeds about 4000 feet, the same peculiar 

 forms. It is, par excellence, a region of mountains ; for wherever 

 cultivated plains of low elevation are found, there the birds of the 

 forest and the mountain disappear, and are poorly replaced, as in 

 India and Eastern China, by other more wide-spread and well- 

 known genera. 



This region is the headquarters of the Phasianidce, the Timaliidce, 

 and Leiotrichince of Jerdon, and is, compared with most parts of the 

 world, very poor in Raptores and Grallatores. 



Out of 170 species of birds obtained in or near Moupin by Pere 

 David, only 9 (namely, Picoides funebris, Coccothraustes vulgaris, 

 Chlorospiza sinica, Eophona personata, Thaumalea amherstice, Cros- 

 soptilon tibetanum, Tetraophasis obscnrus, Cholornis paradoxa, and 

 a genus allied to Pnoepyga and Troglodytes) are of genera not found 

 in the Himalaya ; 6 1 belong to genera either peculiar to or highly 

 characteristic of those mountains ; only 21, or about 12 per cent., 

 belong to genera common to the whole of the Indo-Malay region, — 

 showing that, as far as our present knowledge extends, Moupin, 

 though not so rich in species as Sikim or Nepal, is, from the absence 

 of a low flat plain like the Terai, a district more characteristic of 

 the Himalo-Chinese subregion than any part of the Himalaya itself. 



Among the most curious birds found here may be mentioned 

 Cholornis paradoxa, Verr., a bird so like Heteromorpha unicolor, 

 Hodgs., that if the feet were cut off I do not think it could be di- 

 stinguished. It has, however, the outer toe aborted in such a pecu- 

 liar way, that it has been made by its describer the type of a new 

 genus. This bird seems to have the same habit of skulking in 

 dense jungle of hill-bamboo that I have observed in Paradoxornis, 

 Heteromorpha, and Suthora. 



Pnoepyga troglodytoides, Verr., is another curious bird, doubtfully 

 assigned to that genus by its describer, and very different in appear- 

 ance from any Pnoepyga I have seen. 



Many species previously only known from the Himalaya were found 

 at Moupin by M. David, — among them Grandala ccelicolor, Hodgs., 

 Cinclus cashmeriensis, Gould, Lerwa nivicola, Hodgs., and Accentor 

 nipalensis, Hodgs. — all birds which I have only seen at elevations 

 above 14000 feet in Sikim. Coupling with this the absence of 

 Barbets, Fruit-Pigeons, Trogons, flornbills, and the tropical genera 

 of Woodpeckers (all birds which are found as high as 5000 or 6000 

 feet in Sikim), I conclude that the lowest valleys in this part of 

 Thibet are of a much more alpine nature than in Sikim, and sub- 

 ject in winter to a more severe climate. 



Certhia himalayana, which I have examined and compared with the 



