Birds observed in Kamchatka. 
2 77 
the woods, strikes him Forcibly as a fact which needs some 
explanation. This astonishment is increased by a glance at 
the long lists of absentees tabled by Dr. Stejneger. At the 
mouth of the Amoor river (in latitudes which overlap those of 
Kamchatka) occur representatives of 40 or 45 genera, some of 
them so familiar, as Fulica, Ardea, Tetrao, Columba, Milvus, 
Alcedo, Upupa, lynx, Garrulus, Fringilla ( spinus *), Passer, 
Certhia, Accentor f, and Regulus, yet all these widely- 
distributed genera are absent from Kamchatka. Some of 
these genera, as well as others, such as Botaurus, Turtur , 
Milvus, Colceus, and Cinclus, occur commonly in Northern 
Japan and on the western shores of the Okhotsk Sea, in 
latitudes north of the Uda river, yet they have not reached 
Kamchatka. Others, such as Vanellus, Rallus, Coturnix, 
Circus, Caprimulgus, Sturnus, Cotile, Troglodytes J, and 
Pratincola, occur in Northern Japan without reaching 
Kamchatka; yet a glance at the list of birds found in the 
peninsula shows at once that it is not the severity of climate 
that excludes most of the above genera. 
Dr. Stejneger finds an explanation in the fact that <e the 
climatological and physical conditions of the part connecting 
it [the Kamchatkan Peninsula] with the continent are such 
as to make it a true island, zoologically speaking.” The 
flat country (wrongly marked as mountainous on some maps) 
which lies just north of Kamchatka is so low that a very 
slight submergence would sink it beneath the waves, while 
there is much evidence of a recent upheaval of the whole 
region, including the Commander Islands, and to the latter 
part of this sentence I can myself bear witness. To such an 
island the Kuril chain, barren at least in its northern links, 
would not form a very enticing series of stepping-stones, and 
it is not surprising that no very regular use of these islands 
* I thought I saw this bird at Tareinski Harbour. 
t The occurrence of A. montanellus at Karaginski Island, on the very 
north-eastern boundary of Kamchatka, rather adds to than deducts from 
the peculiarity of its distribution. 
X Occurs, however, on the Commander Islands, at a distance of only 
about 97 miles from Cape Kamchatka, the nearest point of the Kam¬ 
chatkan coast. 
