vi] DISTRIBUTION OF SELECTED GROUPS 113 



Elias in Alaska, and the tiny Trochilns colubris 

 breeds in Canada and Labrador. 



Trogons are tropical ; America, Africa, exclud- 

 ing Madagascar, Indian and Malayan. Most of the 

 Old World genera retain a colour-pattern which is 

 juvenile in the American species, which comprise 

 also the most gorgeous kinds. They point to a direct 

 Afro- American connexion, and this is quite com- 

 patible with the occurrence of Trogons in French 

 Oligocene. 



Woodpeckers also seem to have originated in South 

 America ; now the family is cosmopolitan with the 

 exception of Madagascar, Australian countries and 

 Polynesia. 



P assert formes. More than half the number of 

 recent birds belong to this order. The lesson of their 

 distribution cannot be appreciated without reference 

 to their systematic affinities. 



I. Clamatores, with imperfectly developed sing- 

 ing apparatus ; the few muscles are attached either 

 to the middle, or to the dorsal, or to the ventral edge 

 of each bronchus. Structurally the lowest Passeres 

 are the broadbills or Ewrylaemidae, restricted to the 

 Indies and Malaya. Allied are the ant-thrushes or 

 pittas from New Britain to Madagascar and West 

 Africa ; Xenicus and a few others in New Zealand. 

 Lastly, tyrants, manakins, bellbirds, ant-birds, in all 

 about 1000 kinds in South America, whence many of 



G. 8 



