PARROT 687 
sidering the nature of the country in Baloochistan and Affghanistan, 
is perhaps intelligible enough ; but it is not so easy to understand 
why none are found either in Cochin China or China proper; and 
they are also wanting in the Philippine Islands, which is the more 
remarkable and instructive when we find how abundant they are in 
the groups a little further to the southward. Indeed Mr. Wallace 
has well remarked that the portion of the earth’s surface which 
contains the largest number of Parrots, in proportion to its area, 
is undoubtedly that covered by the islands extending from Celebes 
to the Solomon group. “The area of these islands is probably not 
one-fifteenth of that of the four tropical regions, yet they contain 
from one-fifth to one-fourth of all the known Parrots” (Geogr. Distr. 
Anim. ii. p. 330). He goes on to observe also that in this area are 
found many of the most remarkable forms—all the red Lories, the 
great black Cockatoos, the pigmy Nastternx, and other singularities. 
In South America the species of Parrots, though numerically nearly 
as abundant, are far less diversified in form, and all of them seem 
capable of being referred to two or, at most, three sections. The 
species that has the widest range, and that by far, is the common 
Ring-necked Parakeet, Palzxornis torquatus, a well-known cage-bird 
which is found from the mouth of the Gambia across Africa to the 
coast of the Red Sea, as well as throughout the whole of India, 
Ceylon and Burma to Tenasserim.! On the other hand there are 
plenty of cases of Parrots which are restricted to an extremely 
small area—often an island of insignificant size, as Conwrus pertinaz, 
confined to the island of St. Thomas in the Antilles, and Palzxornis 
exsul, to that of Rodriguez in the Indian Ocean (bis, 1872, pp. 31- 
34, 1875, p. 342, pl. vil.) —to say nothing of the remarkable instance 
afforded by Nestor productus? (see pp. 223, 224 and 628). 
Survey Euphrates and Tigris, i. pp. 448, 537) and of a Parrot in Turkestan 
(Jour. As. Soc. Bengal, viii. p. 1007) originated with gentlemen who had no 
ornithological knowledge, and are evidently erroneous. Some species of ROLLER 
possibly gave rise to the assertions. 
1 It is right to state, however, that the African examples of this bird are 
said to be distinguishable from the Asiatic by their somewhat shorter wings and 
weaker bill, and hence they are considered by some authorities to form a distinct 
species, P. docilis ; but in thus regarding them the difference of locality seems 
to have influenced opinion, and without that difference they would scarcely have 
been separated, for in many other groups of birds distinctions so slight are 
regarded as barely evidence of local races. Even West-African examples are said 
by Count T. Salvadori (Cat. B. Brit. Mus. xx. p. 448) to have larger bills than 
those from the eastern side, which have been further distinguished as P. 
parvirostris. 
2 A case very like that of Nestor productus (pp. 223, 628) is presented by the 
**Mascarin” (Pl. Zn. 35) a Parrot which formerly inhabited the island of Bour- 
bon (Réunion). The last known living example was in the royal menagerie at 
Munich and was figured in 1835 by Hahn (Orn. Atlas, Papegeten, p. 54, pl. 39) ; 
