ii6 THE STORY OF THE BIRDS 



Nearctic Region claims two species and the 

 Australian Region one. Of the more aberrant 

 forms composing this order we have the Trum- 

 peters, confined to the tropical portions of 

 South America; the Limpkins, another special 

 avine feature of the Neotropical Region ; whilst 

 the still more aberrant Kagu is confined to New 

 Caledonia, a remote island of the Pacific. For 

 geographical purposes we may as well here 

 allude to the Seriemas and the Sun Bitterns, 

 which are both peculiar to the Neotropical 

 Region. 



The Ralliformes are another cosmopolitan 

 order confined to no particular area, and uni- 

 versally distributed, with the exception of the 

 Polar Regions, whilst some of the species con- 

 tained therein are remarkable for their exceed- 

 ingly extensive distribution. In this group we 

 have many species confined to islands, some of 

 them having entirely lost the power of flight. 

 It is also a most significant fact that some of 

 the genera or families are indigenous to the 

 tropic zone right round the world — a pheno- 

 menon of distribution that is utterly opposed to 

 any theory of Polar dispersal and also to all the 

 accepted canons of Distribution. The two out- 

 lying and aberrant families are the Finfoots and 



