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 Nasiternse, 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, Palxornis 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. 1 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 Conurus pertinax, 

 confined to the island of St. Thomas in the Antilles, and Palseornis 

 exsul, to that of Rodriguez in the Indian Ocean (Ibis, 1872, pp. 31- 

 34, 1875, p. 342, pi. vii.) to say nothing of the remarkable instance 

 afforded by Nestor produdus 2 (see pp. 223, 224 and 628). 



Survey Euphrates and Tigris, i. pp. 443, 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. Salvador! (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 produdus (pp. 223, 628) is presented by the 

 "Mascarin" (PI. Enl. 35) a Parrot which formerly inhabited the island of Bour- 

 bon (Reunion). The last known living example was in the royal menagerie at 

 Munich and was figured in 1835 by Hahn (Orn. Atlas, Papegeien, p. 54, pi. 39) ; 



