DISTRIBUTION IN SPACE 127 



(Buteoninae) may be classed as cosmopolitan, 

 with the exception of Oceania, where they are 

 very poorly represented (New Caledonia) ; the 

 Eagles (Aquilinae) are also practically cosmo- 

 politan, especially in the great continents ; the 

 Hawks, Harriers, and allied species (Accipitrinae) 

 are even more generally dispersed, except in 

 very high latitudes ; lastly, the Falcons (Fal- 

 coninae) are of almost universal distribution, 

 but they are scarcely represented in Oceania. 

 Not a few of the genera in this as in other 

 sub-families of Raptorial birds are somewhat 

 local, and occupy well-defined geographical 

 limits. Last of all come the Ospreys (Pan- 

 dionidae), a small family of two or three species, 

 yet wide-ranging and distributed over most 

 parts of the world, except the south temperate 

 portions of the Neotropical Region. 



Next in our order of sequence comes the 

 Coraciiformes, comprising no fewer than seven 

 sub-orders and nineteen families. As an order 

 it is absolutely cosmopolitan, but taking the 

 families separately, we shall find that the majority 

 of species are confined to the tropical or sub- 

 tropical regions of the earth. The distribution 

 of these families is as follows. The Rollers 

 (Coraciidae) are chiefly characteristic of the 



