chap, xi.] THE ETHIOPIAN REGION. 259 



moderate elevation. The eastern portion reaches from about the 

 second cataract of the Nile, or perhaps from about the parallel 

 of 20° N. Latitude, down to about 20° S. Latitude, and from the 

 east coast to where the great forest region commences, or to Lake 

 Tanganyika and about the meridian of 28° to 30° E. Longitude. 

 The greater part of this tract is a lofty plateau. 



The surface of all this sub-region is generally open, covered 

 with a vegetation of high grasses or thorny shrubs, with scat- 

 tered trees and isolated patches of forest in favourable situations. 

 The only parts where extensive continuous forests occur, are on 

 the eastern and western slopes of the great Abyssinian plateau, 

 and on the Mozambique coast from Zanzibar to Sofala. The 

 whole of this great district has one general zoological character. 

 Many species range from Senegal to Abyssinia, others from 

 Abyssinia to the Zambesi, and a few, as Mungos fasciatus and 

 Phacoclioerus cethiopicus, range over the entire sub-region. Fenne- 

 cus, Ictonyx, and several genera of antelopes, characterise every 

 part of it, as do many genera of birds. Coracias ncevia, Cory- 

 thornis cyanostigma, TocJais nasutus, T. crythrorliynclms, Parus 

 leucopterus, Bwpliaga africana, Vidua paradisea, are examples 

 of species, which are found in the Gambia, Abyssinia and South 

 East Africa, but not in the West African sub-region ; and con- 

 sidering how very little is known of the natural history 

 of the country immediately south of the Sahara, it may 

 well be supposed that these are only a small portion of the 

 species really common to the whole area in question, and which 

 prove its fundamental unity. 



Although this sub-region is so extensive and so generally 

 uniform in physical features, it is by far the least peculiar part 

 of Africa. It possesses, of course, all those wide-spread Ethiopian 

 types which inhabit every part of the region, but it has hardly 

 any special features of its own. The few genera which are 

 peculiar to it have generally a limited range, and for the most 

 part belong, either to the isolated mountain-plateau of Abyssinia 

 which is almost as much Pala3arctic as Ethiopian, or to the woody 

 districts of Mozambique where the fauna has more of a West 

 or South African character. 



