394 ZOOLOGICAL GEOGRAPHY. [part hi. 



original habitat gives them a great advantage in the luxuriant 

 islands of the Moluccas, to which they have spread. There 

 they abound to a remarkable extent, and their eggs furnish a 

 luxurious repast to the natives. They have also reached many 

 of the smallest islets, and have spread beyond the limits of the 

 region to the Philippines, and North-Western Borneo, as well 

 as to the remote Nicobar Islands. 



The Platycercidse, or broad- tailed paroquets, are another 

 wide-spread Australian group, of weak structure but gorgeously 

 coloured, ranging from the Moluccas to New Zealand and the 

 Society Islands, and very characteristic of the region, to which 

 they are strictly confined. The Cockatoos have not quite so 

 wide a range, being confined to the Austro-Malayan and Austra- 

 lian sub-regions, while one species extends into the Philippine 

 Islands. The other two peculiar families are more restricted in 

 their range, and will be noticed under the sub-regions to which 

 they respectively belong. 



Of the characteristic families, the Pachycephalidae, or thick- 

 headed shrikes, are especially Australian, ranging over all the 

 region, except New Zealand ; while only a single species has 

 spread into the Oriental, and one of doubtful affinity to the 

 Ethiopian region. The Artamidae, or swallow-shrikes, are also 

 almost wholly confined to the region, one species only extending 

 to India. They range to the Fiji Islands on the east, but only 

 to Tasmania on the south. These two families must be con- 

 sidered as really peculiar to Australia. The Podargidae, or frog- 

 mouths — large, thick-billed goat- suckers — are strange birds veiy 

 characteristic of the Australian region, although they have 

 representatives in the Oriental and Neotropical regions. Cam- 

 pephagidae (caterpillar-shrikes) also abound, but they are fairly 

 lepresented both in India and Africa. The Ploceidae, or weaver- 

 birds, are the finches of Australia, and present a variety of 

 interesting and beautiful forms. 



We now come to the kingfishers, a cosmopolitan family of 

 birds, yet so largely developed in the Australian region as to 

 deserve special notice. Two-thirds of all the genera are found 

 here, and no less than 10 out of the 19 genera in the family are 



