CHAP. X.] 
TIIE PAUEARCTIC REGION. 
21Q 
worms, and leeches ; it swims -well, and remains long under 
water, raising the tip of the snout, where the nostrils are 
situated, to the surface when it wants to breathe. It is thus 
well concealed ; and this may be one use of the development 
of the long snout, as well as serving to follow worms into 
their holes in the soft earth. This species is confined to the 
rivers Volga and Don in Southern Russia, and the only other 
species known inhabits some of the valleys on the north side 
of the Pyrenees. In the distance are wolves, a characteristic 
feature of these wastes. 
Birds. — But few genera of birds are absolutely restricted to 
this sub-region. Podoces, a curious form of starling, is the most 
decidedly so ; Myeerobas and Pyrrhospiza are genera of finches 
confined to Thibet and the snowy Himalayas ; Leucostide, another 
genus of finches, is confined to the eastern half of the sub- 
region and North America ; Tdraogallus, a large kind of 
partridge, ranges west to the Caucasus; Syrrhaptes , a form of 
sand-grouse, and Lerwa (snow-partridge), are almost confined 
here, only extending into the next sub-region ; as do Grandala. 
and Calliope, genera of warblers, Uragus , a finch allied to the 
North American cardinals, and Crossoptilon , a remarkable group 
of pheasants. 
Almost all the genera of central and northern Europe are 
found here, and give quite a European character to the ornitho- 
logy, though a considerable number of the species are different. 
There are a few Oriental forms, such as Abrornis and Larvivora 
(warblers) ; with Ceriornis and Ithaginis , genera of pheasants, 
w T hich reach the snow-line in the Himalayas and thus just enter 
this sub-region, but as they do not penetrate farther north, they 
hardly serve to modify the exclusively Palsearctic character of 
its ornithology. 
According to Middendorf, the extreme northern Asiatic birds 
are the Alpine ptarmigan {Lagopus mutus ); the snow-bunting 
(Plectrophanes nivalis) ; the raven, the gyrfalcon and the snowy- 
owl. Those which are characteristic of the barren “ tundras,” 
but which do not range so far north as the preceding are,-— the 
willow-grouse (Lagopns albus) ; the Lapl an d - bun ting (Pled roph a nes 
