CHAP. XIV.] THE NEOTROPICAL REGION. 31 



tropical America, only one species extending south as far as 

 Chili. 3. Ccrthidea, a peculiar genus originally classed among 

 the finches, but which Mr. Sclater, who has made South 

 American birds his special study, considers to belong to the 

 CoercbidcG, or sugar-birds, a family which is wholly tropical. 

 Two species of this genus inhabit separate islands, 4. Prognc, 

 the American martins (Hirundinidte), is represented by a 

 peculiar species. 5. Geospiza, a peculiar genus of finches, of 

 which no less than eight species occur in the archipelago, but 

 not more than four in any one island. 6. Camarhynchus (6 sp.) 

 and 7. Cactornis (4 sp.) are two other peculiar genera of finches ; 

 some of the species of which are confined to single islands, 

 while others inhabit several. 8. Pijiocephalus, a genus of the 

 American family of tyrant-flycatchers (Tyrannidai), has one 

 peculiar species closely allied to T. ruhineus, which has a wide 

 range in South America. 9. Myiarchus, another genus of the 

 same family which does not range further south than western 

 Ecuador, has also a representative species found in several of 

 the islands. 10. Zcnaida, an American genus of pigeons, has 

 a species in James Island and probably in some of the others, 

 closely allied to a species from the west coast of America. 



It has been already stated that some of the islands possess 

 peculiar species of birds distinct from the allied forms in other 

 islands, but unfortunately our knowledge of the different islands 

 is so unequal and of some so imperfect, that we can form no 

 useful generalizations as to the distribution of birds among the 

 islands themselves. The largest island is the least known ; only 

 one bird being recorded from it, one of the mocking-thrushes 

 found nowhere else. Combining the observations of My. Darwin 

 with those of Dr. Habel and Prof. Sundevall, we have species 

 recorded as occurring in seven of the islands. Albemarle island 

 has but one definitely known species ; Chatham and Bindloe 

 islands have 11 each; Abingdon and Charles islands 12 each; 

 Indefatigable island and James island have each 18 species. This 

 .shows that birds are very fairly distributed over all the islands, 

 one of the smallest and most remote (Abingdon) furnishing as 

 many as the much larger Chatham Island, which is also the nearest 



