The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Volume 1: With a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's surfaceWallace, Alfred Russel
Science
The Geographical Distribution of Animals, Volume 1: With a study of the relations of living and extinct faunas as elucidating the past changes of the Earth's surface
Wallace, Alfred Russel
Paleontology; Zoogeography
In the above lists there are rather more Oriental than Palæarctic genera;
but it must be remembered that most of the former are summer migrants only,
or stragglers just entering the sub-region; whereas the great majority of
the latter are permanent residents, and a large proportion of them range
over the greater part of the Manchurian district. Many of those in the
Oriental column should perhaps be omitted, as we have no exact
determination of their range, and the limits of the regions are very
uncertain. It must be remembered, too, that the Palæarctic genera of
Sylviidæ, Paridæ, and Fringillidæ, are often represented by numerous
species, whereas the corresponding Oriental genera have for the most part
only single species; and we shall then find that, except towards the
borders of the Oriental region the Palæarctic element is strongly
predominant. Four of the more especially Oriental groups are confined to
Japan, the southern {226}extremity of which should perhaps come in the
Oriental region. The great richness of this sub-region compared with that
of Siberia is well shown by the fact, that a list of all the known
land-birds of East Siberia, including Dahuria and the comparatively fertile
Amoor Valley, contains only 190 species; whereas Père David's catalogue of
the birds of Northern China with adjacent parts of East Thibet and Mongolia
(a very much smaller area) contains for the same families 366 species. Of
the Siberian birds more than 50 per cent, are European species, while those
of the Manchurian sub-region comprise about half that proportion of
land-birds which are identical with those of Europe.
Japan is no doubt very imperfectly known, as only 134 land-birds are
recorded from it. Of these twenty-two are peculiar species, a number that
would probably be diminished were the Corea to be explored. Of the genera,
only nine are Indo-Malayan, while forty-three are Palæarctic.
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