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Show 1873.] DISTRIBUTION OF ASIATIC BIRDS. 675 we know that the Indo-Malay forms are reduced to a minimum, and are partly replaced by Palaearctic species. SINDH. The ornithology of Sindh, which had been hitherto almost entirely neglected, has now been taken up by Mr. H u m e in his usual energetic and able manner. The paper recently published by him in ' Stray Feathers' is a good example of the way in which our officers work on the N.W. frontier, a school which seems to bring out in the highest degree the energy and activity of those half-military, half civil officers for which the Punjaub is famed. This paper shows that Sindh, though remarkable for the aridity of its climate and the almost total absence of trees, except where irrigation is employed, still contains a good many birds, which show that it cannot be entirely separated from the Indian subregion. The number of these is much larger than might have been expected ; and though some of them are neither so numerous nor so generally distributed as the birds of Palaearctic or Indo-African type, yet they are found wherever sufficient wood and water exists to afford them sustenance and shelter from the burning sun. Brachypternus dilutus, Orthotomus longicaudus, Pericrocotus peregrinus, Buchanga albirictus, Acridotheres tristis and A. gingi-nianus, Geocichla unicolor, and Leucocerca aureola are instances of this; and whether they are original inhabitants of the country, or have immigrated from the Punjaub by following the strip of fertile country which borders the Indus, it is certain that they have as much right to be considered in an estimate of the avifauna as any others. On the other hand it cannot be denied that the birds of the desert, such as Larks, Chats, and Sand-Grouse, are those which are most typical of Sindh, as they are of those countries included in what may be termed the Mediterraneo-Persian, or desert subregion, a division of the Palaearctic region with which I think the Punjaub province of Blanford has much more real affinity than with any part of the Ethiopian as defined by Sclater. An analysis of the birds of Sindh, as given by Hume, made by me in company with Mr. Blanford, whose personal experience of this desert-fauna, both in India, Africa, and Persia, is extensive, gives the following results :- Species peculiar to Mediterraneo-Persian or desert subregion . 41 Species peculiar to Indian subregion 40 Common to Malay subregion 8 Common to Africa and S.W. Asia 4 Common to Palaearctic region 12 Omitted on account of their cosmopolitan distribution, or because they cannot be fairly placed under any of these heads. . 4o 150 43* |