ALLEN'S NATURALIST'S LIBRARY, 



BRITISH BIRDS. 



PICINE BIRDS. ORDER PICIFORMES. 



" Woodpeckers and their kin " might be the popular title of 

 this Order of birds, but it includes two Families which cannot 

 be called Woodpeckers in the true sense of the word, viz., the 

 Puff-Birds {Buccones) and the Jacamars {Galbulce), The two 

 latter Sub-orders are only found in Central and Southern 

 x\merica, and are thus characteristic of the Neotropical 

 Region, i.e., the Tropical Region of the New World. 



The Woodpeckers, on the other hand, are almost cosmo- 

 politan in their distribution. They are found in every part of 

 Europe and Asia, Africa, as well as North and South America, 

 ranging far to the north and south, but they are absent in the 

 Australian Region. Thus they are entirely unknown in the 

 islands of the Pacific Ocean, in New Zealand and Australia 

 itself, nor do we meet with any Woodpecker in the Papuan or 

 Maluccan islands, until we come to Celebes. The fauna 

 of this island exhibits features which are partly Australian 

 and partly Indian, but in possessing Woodpeckers and Mon- 

 keys (cf. Forbes, Nat. Libr. Primates, ii. p. 250), its zoological 

 affinities inchne to the Indian Region. Wallace's line, which 

 passes between the islands of Bali and Lombock, has also 

 been supposed to show an absolute barrier between the terres- 

 trial fauna of the Indian and Australian Regions, and it is so 

 in the majority of cases : nevertheless, two genera of Wood- 

 peckers cross it, as lyngipicus grai^dis and Dendrocopiis analh 

 are found in Lombock and Flores. 



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