102 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



Australia alone. The Cacatuidse, which are found only in this 

 and the adjoining transition region, with a solitary species, Caca- 

 tua hsematuropygia, in the Philippines, comprise, among other forms, 

 the commoner species of the genus Cacatua, as the sulphur-crested 

 and rose-breasted cockatoos, and the black cockatoos of the genus 

 Calyptorhynchus, which last are restricted to the continent of Aus- 

 tralia and Tasmania. An aberrant group of the parrots are the 

 New Zealand nestors (Nestorida?), some of whose members appear 

 to be addicted to carnivorous habits, 29 and which would seem to 

 have certain points of relationship with the South American ma- 

 caws. In New Zealand, likewise, are found the owl-like nocturnal 

 parrots of the family Strigopidse. One of the most distinctive 

 groups of birds of the Australian region are the honey- suckers 

 (Meliphagida3), whose representatives are scattered all over the 

 Austro-Malaysian and Polynesian groups of islands, from Celebes 

 to the Marquesas Islands, and from Tasmania to Hawaii. Of some 

 two hundred or more species of this family but a single one, 

 Ptilotis limbata, enters the Oriental region (the Island of Bali). 

 The nearly related honey-suckers (Nectarinida}) are represented by 

 several forms more or less distinctive of the region (Arachnecthra, 

 Arachnothera). Australia with New Guinea, and the adjacent isl- 

 ands, may be considered to be par excellence the natural home of 

 the pigeons (Columba3), nearly one-half of the total number of 

 genera (forty or more) being represented here, and by types many 

 of which are found nowhere else. They include the most gaudily 

 ornamental representatives of the order (Ptilopus), which in the 

 brilliancy of their plumage yield but little to the parrots ; various 

 forms of ground-pigeons (Geophaps, &c.) ; and the beautiful crested- 

 pigeon known as the goura, from New Guinea and some of the 

 adjacent islands. The turtle-dove (Turtur) is found in New Guinea, 

 but the nearly universally distributed Columba, to which the or- 

 dinary rock- or wild-pigeon (C. livia) belongs, and which represents 

 the ancestral form of most of our domestic breeds, is wanting. 



The reptile-fauna of this region is much less distinctive than 

 either the mammalian or avian. Snakes, amphibians (but only the 

 tailless forms), and lizards are abundant, the great bulk of the last 

 being constituted by the scinks and geckoes. Of the amphibians 

 the true toads (Bufonida?) are represented by a limited number of 

 species in Australia, although the genus Bufo itself is wanting; 



