THE AUSTRALIAN REGION 



In the present treatment. New Zealand, Australia, New Guinea, and the Poly- 

 nesian Islands, though in many respects extremely diverse, are regarded as forming 

 the "Australian Region." 



Australia has deserts and savannas, and, in the northeast, rain forest; New Guinea 

 has savannas and rain forest resembling those of northeast Australia. New Guinea is 

 near the equator but the mountains rise to about 15,000 feet and zonal bands of dif- 

 ferent species of birds are very evident on them. The lowlands are mostly rain forest, 

 but at higher altitudes belts of oak, beech, and coniferous forest occur, with alpine 

 grassland above them. 



In the New Guinea-Australian area several well-marked families are characteris- 

 tic, notably those of the cassowaries, emus, lyre birds, birds of paradise, bower birds, 

 and honeyeaters; also, several groups of passerine birds are so different from any others 

 that they should probably be considered to be small endemic families. Among these 

 are the Australian nuthatches, the bell magpies, the magpie-larks, the scrub birds, the 

 diamond birds and the gray jumper. Certain groups of birds are also especially char- 

 acteristic of the New Guinea-Australian area, with many species: parrots and lories, 

 pigeons and doves, kingfishers, crested swifts, frogmouths, and certain Old World 

 groups such as thickheads and fairy wrens. Megapodes, fowl-like birds with the curious 

 habit of burying their eggs in the earth or in piles of dead vegetation and leaving them 

 to hatch by themselves, are also most plentiful in this area. 



One of the striking New Caledonia birds is the kagu, with but one species, for which 

 a separate suborder has been erected. 



In the Pacific Islands, which evidently received their birds from overseas, the fauna 

 is poor. The number of resident birds depends on the size of the islands and the dis- 

 tance from large land masses. This is well illustrated by the following numbers of 

 native land birds: Australia, 488; New Guinea, 509; Solomon Islands, 127; Fiji Is- 

 lands, 54; Samoa, 33; Society Islands, 14; Marquesas Islands, 11; Henderson Islands, 

 4; Easter Island, 0. 



As one goes out toward the outer rim of the scattered South Sea islands, one finally 

 comes to localities like Easter Island, so small and remote that no land bird has been 

 able to colonize it. 



New Zealand has a grand total of about 300 recorded birds, but more than two 

 dozen are known only from fossils, 31 are well-established introduced species, and 

 more than 100 are sea birds, so that the living, native, land and fresh- water birds prob- 

 ably number about 100 species. 



The New Zealand avifauna is noted for its moas, which were giant birds, larger than 

 ostriches, that were apparently exterminated by the early Maoris. The related and 



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