330 GEOGEAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. [part iv. 



marked exceptions to the rule which limits the parrot tribe to 

 the tropical and sub-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 Eiver. In India they extend to about 35° 1ST. 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 29 species ; the Neotropical region is much richer, 

 having 14 genera and 141 species ; while the smallest in area 

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

 sesses 31 genera and 176 species, and it also possesses exclusively 

 5 of the families, Trichoglossidse, Platycercida?, Cacatuidse, 

 Nestoridse, 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 Prioniturus, 

 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 



