Geographical Distribution :;63 



VII. THE CAMEROONIAN SUB-REGION. 



When the mountains of the Cameroons were first visited 

 by the late Captain Burton, the few birds obtained by him 

 revealed the existence of a peculiar Avifauna at high 

 elevations, and this fact has been amply confirmed by the 

 more recent explorations of Sir Harry Johnston and the 

 German naturalist, Dr. Preuss, and others. The same 

 phenomenon occurs in the mountains of Equatorial and 

 Eastern Africa, and we find that above an altitude of some 

 3000 feet on Mt. Elgon, Mt. Kenia, Mt. Kilimanjaro, Mt. 

 Zomba in Nyasa-land, and other mountainous regions, 

 many quite peculiar birds exist and are found nowhere 

 else. This fact was amply demonstrated by the collections 

 made by Mr. F. J. Jackson during his celebrated explora- 

 tion of Mount Elgon, and it has been confirmed by his 

 subsequent work in the mountainous districts of Equatorial 

 Africa. I have called this Sub-Region the " Cameroonian," 

 because the particular element first discovered in these 

 mountains seems to obtain at similar high altitudes in the 

 isolated mountains of East Africa. A peculiar genus of 

 Weaver-Finches, Cryptospiza, occurs in the Cameroons, in 

 the mountains of Shoa, and re-appears in those of Nyasa- 

 land, and it has even been found that in some instances 

 the Birds and Butterflies of Mt. Elgon and the high 

 Cameroons are actually identical. There seems, indeed, to 

 be a peculiar Avifauna on those high elevations of the 

 African Continent, differing from that of the lower country, 

 and even preserving a certain Indian element. A character- 

 istic species of the Cameroonian Sub-Region is Pinaroc/iroa, 

 which is only found in the highest altitudes, up to 11,000 

 feet. 



