Notes oji Created Birds of Prey. 207 



Neotropical. Spilornis : Oriental. Dryotriorchis : Ethiopian. 

 Eutriorchis: Madagascar. Helotarsits: Ethiopian. Thrasae- 

 TiNi^ — Thrasmtus, Morphnus, Harj)yopsis, and t Harpyha- 

 liaetus (PI. X., Fig. 10) : all Neotropical. AquiliNyE — Spizae- 

 tus : Neotropical, Ethiopian, and Oriental ; one species ranges 

 to Japan. Lophotriorehis : Neotropical, Oriental. Spnziastiir : 

 Neotropical ? Neopus : Oriental. Of the HALiAETiNiE, 

 VULTUEID^, Gypohieracin^, GYPAETID^, the PAN- 

 DIONES, and the CATHARTI, not a single form is crested ; 

 while the remaining section, the SERPENTARII, is repre- 

 sented by the well-crested Secretary Bird of Southern and 

 Eastern Africa. 



An examination of these curious facts of distribution leads 

 us at once to the generalization that, if we except the Baza 

 that has crossed Wallace's Line into Australia, and the 

 Spizaetus that, similarly, has wandered into Japan, not a 

 single crested diurnal Bird of Prey ranges into the Nearctic, 

 the Pala3arctic, or the Australian Eegions. If the fact stood 

 alone, we might be disposed to regard it as a singular coinci- 

 dence, and nothing more. But when it is considered in 

 conjunction with other facts of the same nature, brought into 

 more or less prominence of late years, it is seen to form an 

 additional link in a long chain of evidence which scientific 

 zoology has brought to bear upon the history of the former 

 chanoes of the earth's surface. We now know that families, 

 sub-families, and even genera, of organised beings are in many 

 cases older than many of the larger features of the countries 

 they inhabit. Some appear to be older even than the conti- 

 nents. We are, therefore, it seems to me, justified in supposing 

 that the region where crests were first developed amongst the 

 ancestral forms of the five sub-families that now bear them 

 was an area now submerged, but which, under the different 

 geographical conditions of former periods of the earth's 

 history, was connected on its western margin with what is 

 now the eastern limit of the Neotropical Eegion. The area 

 may have existed somewhere between where Cape Horn and 

 the Cape of Good Hope are now. As the physical geography 

 of that old continent (or archipelago) changed, land surfaces 

 were propagated in the direction of the present Neotropical 



