INTRODUCTION. 
XXXV 
and to the lower slopes of the Kingan and Peling mountains ; and China to 
the Nandin mountains soutli of the Yang-tze-kiang. On the coast of China 
the dividing-line between it and the Oriental region seems to be somewhere 
about Foo-cliow ; 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 west, 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 Amour valley, but very little of Corea and Manchuria. The recent 
researches of Pere David in Moupiu, 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 continu- 
ation of the Himalayas) ; since he found at diff"erent altitudes representatives 
of the Indo-Chinese, Mancliurian, and Siberian faunas. On the higher 
slopes of the Himalayas there must be a narrow strip, from about 8000 to 
11,000 feet elevation, intervening between the tropical fauna of the Indo- 
Chinese subregion 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 Avest towards Cashmere, where the 
Mediterranean fauna will in like manner intervene. On a map of sufficiently 
large scale, therefore, it would be necessary to extend our present subregion 
westward along the Himalayas, in a narrow strip just below the upper limits 
of forests." (Distrib. of Anim. i. p. 20.) 
