ANATOMY OF BIRDS
GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION
MIGRATIONS OF BIRDS
CLASSIFICATION OF BIRDS
LIZARD-TAILED BIRD
AMERICAN TOOTHED-BIRDS
THE OSTRICHES
THE RHEAS
EMEUS AND CASSOWARIES
THE TINAMOUS
THE KIWIS
THE PENGUINS
LOONS AND GREBES
ALBATROSSES & PETRELS
STORK-LIKE BIRDS
GOOSE-LIKE BIRDS
FALCON-LIKE BIRDS
FOWL-LIKE BIRDS
CRANE-LIKE BIRDS
PLOVER-LIKE BIRDS
CUCKOO-LIKE BIRDS
THE ROLLER-LIKE BIRDS
SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS
Birds and Birding's Guide to:
Watching GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION OF BIRDS
The Holarctic Region
Notwithstanding the fact that this vast Region is, area for area, much larger than all the others combined, it is the most difficult to satisfactorily define. Even the outlines are still open to question in many places, and can be given only approximately.
In the New World the southern line of the Holarctic Region has been worked out with considerable detail, being in fact the northern line of the tropics. Starting on the Pacific coast, it crosses the lower portion of the peninsula of Lower California; thence crossing to the Mexican mainland it skirts the mountains and passes over into the Atlantic drainage in southern Mexico, when it bends northward to leave the continent in extreme southern Texas just above the mouth of the Rio Grande.
Crossing the Gulf of Mexico, it excludes a portion of southern Florida and the Bermudas and touches the African coast about the vicinity of Mogador, where its course is clear, for it follows the northern limit of the Great Desert. As regards its extension across the Asiatic continent to the Pacific we may accept the recent statement of Mr. H. E. Dresser, who supposes it to”run to the northward of the Arabian Desert, and including the tableland of Persia, the highlands of Baluchistan, the whole of Afghanistan, and the Himalayan Range above about 6000 feet, stretching to the south of Tibet, and north of the valley of Yang-tse-kiang as far as the Pacific, and then around Corea, and the main islands of Japan."
The Holarctic Region may be divided into two major areas (denominated Regions by Sclater), called the Nearctic for that portion embraced in the New World, and Palaearctic for the Old World portion. In the entire Nearctic area there is but a single peculiar family of birds, the Chamaida, or Wren-tits. All the other Nearctic families are common to the Neotropical Region or to the Palsearctic area or to both. This condition of affairs also prevails in the Palsearctic area, for of the twelve or thirteen hundred species of birds inhabiting it, there is not a single family that is absolutely peculiar to it. For the proper characterization of this Region we must consider the genera, but the presentation of these data in sufficient detail to become intelligible would take us quite beyond the limits of the space available.
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