76 TYPES OF ANIMAL LIFE 



group of birds^ difterent members of which have their 

 home in different quarters of the globe, while the order 

 contains the most ancient species ever domesticated by- 

 man. 



But it is also one of a great number of species of the 

 bird class, which are most peculiar in very difierent ways 

 and yet all of them agree in being entirely confined to 

 the American continent. 



These birds are not — save the curassows — members of 

 the turkey's order, and the only bond between it and 

 them, is a geographical one — the fact that they are found 

 nowhere in the world save in ^N'orth or South America. 

 It is the southern and central portions of the continent 

 which contain the enormous majority of such forms, 

 although most educated persons have heard of the 

 mocking bird, the passenger pigeon, and the canvas- 

 backed duck, as peculiar to North America. 



To the south of that region we find the immense 

 majority of species of those living gems, the humming 

 birds, which it is the distinction of America to possess 

 exclusively. The warmer parts of that continent also 

 contain more species of parrots than are to be met with 

 in any other quarter of the globe. 



Even in the United States a species of parrot still lives 

 in Florida, while eighty years ago it was abundant further 

 north. Yet no members of its order exist in even the 

 warmest corner of Europe, Not that a great wai-mth is 

 an absolutely necessary condition, for a company of cock- 

 atoos long lived in a semi-wild state on a gentleman's 

 property in Norfolk who had introduced them there, and 

 had their food in winter carefully provided for them. 



But the warmer parts of America are also the exclu- 

 sive home of those singular and beautifully plumaged 

 birds the toucans, which are so distinguished by the 



