330 GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. [PART iv. 



marked exceptions to the rule which limits the parrot tribe to 

 the tropical and sut-tropical regions, roughly defined as extend- 

 ing about 30 on each side of the equator. In America a species 

 of Conurus reaches the straits of Magellan on the south, while 

 another inhabits the United States, and once extended to the 

 great lakes, although now confined to the south-eastern districts. 

 In Africa parrots do not reach the northern tropic, owing to the 

 desert nature of the country ; and in the south they barely reach 

 the Orange Kiver. In India they extend to about 35 N". in the 

 western Himalayas ; and in the Australian region, not only to 

 New Zealand but to Macquarie Islands in 54 S., the farthest 

 point from the equator reached by the group. But although 

 found in all the tropical regions they are most unequally dis- 

 tributed. Africa is poorest, possessing only 6 genera and 25 

 species ; the Oriental region is also very poor, having but 6 

 genera and v $9 species ; the Neotropical region is much richer, 

 having 14 genera and l^l^species ; while the smallest in area 

 and the least tropical in climate the Australian region, pos- 

 sesses 3 v l"genera and 176 species, and it also possesses exclusively 

 5 of the families, Trichoglossidse, Platycercidse, Cacatuidae, 

 Nestoridae, and Stringopidse. The portion of the earth's surface 

 that contains the largest number of parrots in proportion to its 

 area is, undoubtedly, the Austro-Malayan sub-region, including 

 the islands from Celebes to the Solomon Islands. 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. In this area too are found many of the 

 most remarkable forms, all the crimson lories, the great black 

 Cockatoos, the pigmy Nasiterna, the raquet-tailed Prionitw*us, 

 and the bareheaded Dasyptilus. 



The almost universal distribution of Parrots wherever the 

 climate is sufficiently mild or uniform to furnish them with a 

 perennial supply of food, no less than their varied details of 

 organization, combined with a great uniformity of general type, 

 tell us, in unmistakable language, of a very remote antiquity. 

 The only early record of extinct parrots is, however, in the 

 Miocene of France, where remains apparently allied to the West 



