CH. Il] PARROTS AND PIGEONS. 115 



Central and South America, there are no Marsupials found 

 outside of Australia and the Australian region. As this 

 region consists so largely of islands it might be expected 

 that the peculiar forms have often an extremely limited 

 range within it ; that is the case, and I have dealt 

 elsewhere with the fauna of New Zealand, which is an 

 important part of the Australian region, so important 

 indeed that it has been proposed to separate it off as an 

 equivalent region. Among the characteristic animals of 

 Australia that do not belong to genera or families limited 

 to the region is the wild dog, the Dingo ; it has been 

 doubted whether this is really an indigenous animal at 

 all. 



It is often suggested, or perhaps left to be inferred, 

 that the Avifauna of this region is inferior in its distinc- 

 tiveness to the Mammalian ; no doubt the absolutely 

 unrivalled peculiarity of that fauna tends to obscure by 

 contrast the real and numerous peculiarities of the bird 

 fauna ; but a glance at the above list will show that 

 Australia and its adjacent islands in reality abounds with 

 peculiar types of birds. It is specially noteworthy on 

 account of the great abundance and variety of the Parrots, 

 being comparable to indeed really excelling in this 

 respect South America. Highly characteristic also of 

 the region are the Pigeons. These rather defenceless 

 birds, which have no beak or claw to speak of, and which 

 construct rude and easily accessible nests exposed to view 

 in the most open manner, possibly owe their abundance 

 to the absence of a great variety of Carnivorous Mam- 

 malia. They are also to a considerable extent marked 



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