CHAP. XVIII.] 
JAPAN AND FORMOSA, 
365 
Yesso it is about 200. The island of Saghalien, however, 
separated from Yesso by a strait only twenty- five miles wide, 
forms a connection with Amoorland in about 52° N. Lat. A 
southern warm current flowing a little to the eastward of the 
islands, ameliorates their climate much in the same way as the 
Gulf Stream does ours, and added to their insular position enables 
them to support a more tropical vegetation and more varied 
forms of life than are found at corresponding latitudes in China. 
Zoological features of J apan . — As we might expect from the 
conditions here sketched out, Japan exhibits in all its forms of 
animal life a close general resemblance to the adjacent continent, 
but with a considerable element of specific individuality ; while 
it also possesses some remarkable isolated groups. It also ex- 
hibits indications of there having been two or more lines of 
migration at different epochs. The majority of its animals are 
related to those of the temperate or cold regions of the continent, 
either as identical or allied species; but a smaller number have a 
tropical character, and these have in several instances no allies 
in China but occur again only in Northern India or the Malay 
Archipelago. There is also a slight American element in the 
fauna of Japan, a relic probably of the period when a land 
communication existed between the two continents over what 
are now the shallow seas of Japan, Ochotsk, and Kamschatka. 
We will now proceed to examine the peculiarities and relations 
of the fauna. 
Mammalia . — The mammalia of Japan at present known are 
forty in number ; not very many when compared with the rich 
fauna of China and Manchuria, but containing monkeys, bears, 
deer, wild goats and wild boars, as well as foxes, badgers, moles, 
squirrels, and hares, so that there can be no doubt whatever 
that they imply a land connection with the continent. No 
complete account of Japan mammals has been given by any 
competent zoologist since the publication of Von Siebold’s 
Fauna Japonica in 1844, but by collecting together most of the 
scattered observations since that period the following list has 
been drawn up, and will, it is hoped, be of use to naturalists. 
The species believed to be peculiar to Japan are printed in 
italics. These are very numerous, but it must be remembered 
