OCR Text |
Show 1873.] DISTRIBUTION OF ASIATIC BIRDS. 647 PALAEARCTIC REGION. The greater part of Asia is now universally admitted to belong to the great Palaearctic region, which, though (as pointed out by Dr. Sclater) the most extensive in the world, is zoologically the poorest. Of the whole country between the Russian dominions in Siberia and our own in India we know so little that I have not been able to find a single locality in which the materials necessary for analysis have been collected. It is, however, reasonable to suppose that the immense deserts of Mongolia, the steppes of the Kirghiz, and the snowy mountains of Thibet contain but little variety of species, and that we shall be safe in including them in the Palaearctic region until they are better known. TURKESTAN. In Russian Turkestan M. Severtsoff has collected largely; and though no account has been given of the birds he obtained, I believe they were mostly species which are known to occur in Western Siberia and Persia. From Yarkand a few birds new to science were recently brought by Dr. Henderson *, by far the most interesting among them being two species of Podoces, a genus restricted to Central Asia, and supposed by Mr. Hume to be more nearly allied to the Timaliinae of India and Africa than to the Corvidae, in which it was placed by Bonaparte. In the mountain-ranges which cover a great part of Persia and Afghanistan the fauna becomes more like that of Eastern Europe, a few genera only, such as Erythrospiza, Carpodacus, and Tetraogallus, being remarkable. AFGHANISTAN. Of the birds of Afghanistan we have no detailed account, except that by Capt. Hutton (J. A. S. B. 1847, p. 775), by which it appears that in a collection of 66 species of land birds made at Candahar there were as follows:- Species common to India and Europe 38 Found in Europe only 12 In India only 12 In neither 4 Among the European birds the most remarkable are Pica caudata, Loxia curvirostra, Merula vulgaris, Sitta syriaca, Alcedo Sturnus unicolor; but almost the only one among the Indian birds which strikes me as unexpected is Myiophonus temmincki, which, if a resident in the country at all, must be very local. Tetraogallus caucasicus has not been recorded so far east as this by any other naturalist. It is therefore doubtful what, if any, species of that genus will be found in the north of Afghanistan and Badakshan. PERSIA. Of the birds of Persia I have, through the kindness of Mr. Blan- * See Lahore to Yarkand : London, 1873. |