{195}_Plate I.--Illustrating the Zoology of Central Europe._--Before considering the distribution of the other classes of vertebrata, it will be convenient to introduce our first illustration, which represents a scene in the Alps of Central Europe, with figures of some of the most characteristic Mammalia and Birds of this sub-region. On the left is the badger (_Meles Taxus_) one of the weasel family, and belonging to a genus which is strictly Palæarctic. It abounds in Central and Northern Europe and also extends into North Asia, but is represented by another species in Thibet and by a third in Japan. The elegantly-formed creatures on the right are chamois (_Rupicapra tragus_), almost the only European antelopes, and wholly confined to the higher mountains, from the Pyrenees to the Carpathians and the Caucasus. The chamois is the only species of the genus, and is thus perhaps the most characteristic European mammal. The bird on the left, above the badgers, is the Alpine chough, (_Fregilus pyrrhocorax_). It is found in the high mountains from the Alps to the Himalayas, and is allied to the Cornish chough, which is still found on our south-western coasts, and which ranges to Abyssinia and North China. The Alpine chough differs in having a shorter bill of an orange colour, and vermilion red feet as in the other species. In the foreground are a pair of ruffs (_Machetes pugnax_) belonging to the Scolopacidæ or snipe family, and most nearly allied to the genus _Tringa_ or sandpiper. This bird is remarkable for the fine collar of plumes which adorns the males in the breeding season, when they are excessively pugnacious. It is the only species of its genus, and ranges over all Europe and much of Northern Asia, migrating in the winter to the plains of India, and even down the east coast of Africa as far as the Cape of Good Hope; but it only breeds in the Palæarctic region, over the greater part of which it ranges. _Reptiles and Amphibia._--There are no genera of reptiles peculiar to this sub-region. Both snakes and lizards are comparatively scarce, there being about fourteen species of the former and twelve of the latter. Our common snake (_Tropidonotus natrix_) extends into Sweden and North Russia, but the viper (_Viperus berus_) goes further north, as far as Archangel (64° N.), and in Scandinavia (67° N.), and is the most Arctic of all known {196}snakes. Of the lizards, _Lacerta stirpium_ (the sand lizard) has the most northerly range, extending into Poland and Northern Russia; and _Anguis fragilis_ (the blind or slow-worm) has almost an equal range.