18 BIKDS. 



line drawn from Cape Verd parallel to 10° N. lat. as far as long. 15° E., and then 

 S.E. to include the eastern watershed of the Great Lakes, Socotra, and Arahia. 

 One of the most peculiar is the Shoe Bill, or Whale-headed Stork, on the Upper 

 INile, and the valley of the Lower Nile is overrun with migrants from the Palse- 

 arctio region during winter. 



(&) The Guinean subregion occupies the western seaboard from Sierra Leone to 

 the south of Congo. It has three species of Guinea Fowl and the Grey Parrot. It 

 is essentially a forest region. 



(c) TTie Caffrarian subregion. Africa S. of the Quanza, and the northern 

 watershed of the Zambesi, with St. Helena. The Secretary Bird appears here as 

 semi-domestic, and in St. Helena there is a small Einged Plover which is not 

 known to have occurred off the island. 



{d) The Mosambican subregion includes East Africa between Abyssinia and 

 the watershed of the Zambesi, as well as the islands of Pemba, Zanzibar, and 

 Monfia. 



(e) The Madagasearian subregion includes the Mascarene Islands. Except 

 'New Zealand, it may be safely deemed the most peculiar subregion on the 

 earth's surface. The now extinct Dodo, Solitaire, and jiEpyomis were birds of 

 this subregion. The Dodo inhabited Mauritius, the Solitaire was found in 

 Rodriguez, and ./Epyornis was peculiar to Madagascar itself. 



6. The Indian Kbgion comprises all India south of the Himalayas, and the 

 rest of Asia south of the Yang-tze-kiang ; the Indian Archipelago, including the 

 Philippines, Borneo, and the island of Bali. Characteristics of Hinialayan avi- 

 fauna are found showing themselves not only on the highlands of S. India and 

 Ceylon, but far away to the eastward also, as in Formosa, Hainan, and Cochin 

 China, and again in a lesser degree in the mountain ranges of Malacca and 

 Sumatra. This region is the home of the most gorgeous Gallinaceous birds — 

 the Peacock, the Argus, Firebacked, Polyplectron, and other Pheasants. It is 

 also the home of the Jungle Fowl, and possesses most of the Asiatic Hornbills. 

 Sunbirds, Barbets, Cuckoos, Bee Eaters, Kingfishers, Mynahs, and others are 

 found, and three families of birds, viz. the Hill Tits (Liotrichidce), the Bulbuls 

 (Pycnonotidce), and the Broad Bills (Hurylcemidai) are peculiar out of upwards of 

 seventy which occur within its limits. 



The subregions are thus defined : — 



(a) The Himalo-GMnese subregion includes all the middle slopes of the Hima- 

 layan range from an elevation of about 3,000 to 12,000 feet, and beginning with 

 Kashmir, extends through Nepal, Bhotan, the highlands of Assam, and thence 

 marching with the as yet undetermined frontier of the Palsearctic region to the 

 sea-coast of China. To this subregion belong the islands of Formosa and 

 Hainan, and it not only includes a great part of China proper, but probably the 

 whole of Cochin China and Siam, with the hill country of Tenasserim and 

 Burma, merging into the Malayan subregion somewhere about lat. 12° N. In 

 its western part, Mr. Elwes observes, it is merely a narrow borderland in which 

 the members of two very different fauna meet, and being inhabited during some 

 part of the year by nearly all the principal Palsearctic genera and those of the 

 proper Indian subregion, probably includes some of the richest portions of the 

 world. 



Taking the various countries in succession. In Kashmir, out of 116 genera 



