The large number of seventeen peculiar species in the outlying Bonin and Loo Choo Islands is an interesting feature of Japanese ornithology. The comparative remoteness of {399} these islands, their mild sub-tropical climate and luxuriant vegetation, and perhaps the absence of violent storms and their being situated out of the line of continental migration, seem to be the conditions that have favoured the specialisation of modified types adapted to the new environment. _Japan Birds Recurring in Distant Areas._--The most interesting feature in the ornithology of Japan is, undoubtedly, the presence of several species which indicate an alliance with such remote districts as the Himalayas, the Malay Islands, and Europe. Among the peculiar species, the most remarkable of this class are,--the fruit-pigeon of the genus Treron, entirely unknown in China, but reappearing in Formosa and Japan; the Hypsipetes, whose nearest ally is in South China at a distance of nearly 500 miles; and the jay (_Garrulus japonicus_), whose near ally (_G. glandarius_) inhabits Europe only, at a distance of 3,700 miles. But even more extraordinary are the following non-peculiar species:--_Spizaetus orientalis_, a crested eagle, inhabiting the Himalayas, Formosa, and Japan, but unknown in Southern or Eastern China; _Ceryle guttata_, a spotted kingfisher, almost confined to the Himalayas and Japan, though occurring rarely in Central China; and _Halcyon coromanda_, a brilliant red kingfisher inhabiting Northern India, the Malay Islands to Celebes, Formosa, and Japan. We have here an excellent illustration of the favourable conditions which islands afford both for species which elsewhere live further south (_Halcyon coromanda_), and for the preservation in isolated colonies of species which are verging towards extinction; for such we must consider the above-named eagle and kingfisher, both confined to a very limited area on the continent, but surviving in remote islands. Referring to our account of the birth, growth, and death of a species (in Chapter IV.) it can hardly be doubted that the _Ceryle guttata_ formerly ranged from the Himalayas to Japan, and has now almost died out in the intervening area owing to geographical and physical changes, a subject which will be better discussed when we have examined the interesting fauna of the island of Formosa. {400}