144 NATURAL HISTORY [chap, xxvii. 



the feathered trilies. The number of species of birds at 

 present known from the various islands of the Moluccan 

 group is 265, but of these only 70 belong to the usually- 

 abundant tribes of the waders and swimmers, indicating 

 that these are very imperfectly known. As they are also 

 pre-eminently wanderers, and are thus little fitted for illus- 

 trating the geographical distribution of life in a limited 

 area, we will here leave them out of consideration and 

 confine our attention only to the 195 land birds. 



When we consider that all Europe, with its varied 

 climate and vegetation, with every mile of its surface 

 explored, and with the immense extent of temperate Asia 

 and Africa, which serve as storehouses, from which it is 

 continually recruited, only supports 257 species of land 

 birds as residents or regular immigrants, we must look 

 upon the numbers already procured in the small and com- 

 paratively unknown islands of the Moluccas as indicating 

 a fauna of fuUy average richness in this department. But 

 when we come to examine the family groups which go to 

 make up this number, we find the most curious deficiencies 

 in some, balanced by equally striking redundancy in others. 

 Thus if we compare the birds of the Moluccas with those 

 of India, as given in Mr. Jerdon's work, we find that the 

 three groups of the parrots, kingfishers, and pigeons, form 

 nearly one-third of the whole land-birds in the former, 

 while they amount to only 07ie-twentieth in the latter 



I 



