chap x.] THE PAL^ARCTIC REGION. 221 



slopes of the Khingan and Peling mountains ; and China to 

 the Nanlin mountains south of the Yang-tse-kiang. On the 

 coast of China the dividing line between it and the Oriental 

 region seems to be somewhere about Foo-chow, but as there is 

 here no natural barrier, a great intermingling of northern and 

 southern forms takes place. 



Japan is volcanic and mountainous, with a fine climate and a 

 most luxuriant and varied vegetation. Manchuria is hilly, with 

 a high range of mountains on the coast, and some desert tracts 

 in the interior, but fairly wooded in many parts. Much of 

 northern China is a vast alluvial plain, backed by hills and 

 mountains with belts of forest, above which are the dry and 

 barren uplands of Mongolia. We have a tolerable knowledge 

 of China, of Japan, and of the Amoor valley, but very little of 

 Corea and Manchuria. The recent researches of Pere David in 

 Moupin, in east Thibet, said to be between 31° and 32° north 

 latitude, show, that the fauna of the Oriental region here advances 

 northward along the flanks of the Yun-ling mountains (a 

 continuation of the Himalayas) ; since he found at different 

 altitudes representatives of the Indo-Chinese, Manchurian, and 

 Siberian faunas. On the higher slopes of the Himalayas, there 

 must be a narrow strip from about 8,000 to 11,000 feet elevation 

 intervening between the tropical fauna of the Indo-Chinese sub- 

 region and the almost arctic fauna of Thibet ; and the animals 

 of this zone will for the most part belong to the fauna of 

 temperate China and Manchuria, except in the extreme west 

 towards Cashmere, where the Mediterranean fauna will in like 

 manner intervene. On a map of sufficiently large scale, there- 

 fore, it would be necessary to extend our present sub-region 

 westward along the Himalayas, in a narrow strip just below 

 the upper limits of forests. It is evident that the large number 

 of Fringillidae, Corvidae, Troglodytidae, and Parida>, often of south 

 Palaearctic forms, that abound in the higher Himalayas, are some- 

 what out of place as members of the Oriental fauna, and are 

 equally so in that of Thibet and Siberia; but they form a 

 natural portion of that of North China on the one side, or of 

 South Europe on the other. 



