chap, xii.] THE ORIENTAL REGION. 329 



adapted to local conditions to be expelled ; so that it is among 

 these groups alone that we find any considerable number, of what 

 are probably the remains of the ancient fauna of a now sub- 

 merged southern continent. 



III. Himalayan or Indo-Chinese Snb-region. 



This, which is probably the richest of all the sub-regions, and 

 perhaps one of the richest of all tracts of equal extent on the 

 face of the globe, is essentially a forest-covered, mountainous 

 country, mostly within the tropics, but on its northern margin 

 extending some degrees beyond it, and rising in a continuous 

 mountain range till it meets and intercalates with the Man- 

 churian sub-division of the Palrearctic region. The peculiar 

 mammalia, birds and insects of this sub-region begin to appear 

 at the very foot of the Himalayas, but Dr. Gunther has shown 

 that many of the reptiles characteristic of the plains of India 

 are found to a height of from 2,000 to 4,000 feet. 



In Sikhim, which may be taken as a typical example of the 

 Himalayan portion of the sub-region, it seems to extend to an 

 altitude of little less than 10,000 feet, that being the limit of the 

 characteristic Timaliidae or babbling thrushes ; while the equally 

 characteristic Pycnonotidse, or bulbuls, and Treronidse, or thick- 

 billed fruit-pigeons, do not, according to Mr. Blanford, reach 

 quite so high. We may perhaps take 9,000 feet as a good 

 approximation over a large part of the Himalayan range ; but 

 it is evidently not possible to define the line with any great 

 precision. Westward, the sub-region extends in diminishing 

 breadth, till it terminates in or near Cashmere, where the fauna 

 of the plains of India almost meets that of the Palrearctic 

 region, at a moderate elevation. Eastward, it reaches into East 

 Thibet and North-west China, where Pere David has found a 

 large number of the peculiar types of the Eastern Himalayas. A 

 fauna, in general features identical, extends over Burmah and 

 Siam to South China; mingling with the Palsearctic fauna in 

 the mountains south of the Yang-tse-kiang river, and with 

 that of Indo-Malaya in Tenasserim, and to a lesser extent in 

 Southern Siam and Cochin China. 



Vol. I.— 23 



