78 GEOGRAPHICAL DISTRIBUTION. 



than fifteen species are found within the limits of the Holarctic 

 realm and the Sonoran transition tract, one species, the ruby-throat 

 (Trochilus colubris), on the east coast of the continent of North 

 America extending its range northward beyond the Canadian bor- 

 der, and one (Selasphorus rufus) on the west as far north as Sitka. 

 So, again, the Conurinse, or macaws, an equally distinctive Neo- 

 tropical group, with about eighty species, have a solitary Holarctic 

 representative in the Carolina parakeet (Conurus Carolinensis), 

 whose range, at the present time, seems not to extend much farther 

 than the State of South Carolina, but which, until a comparatively 

 recent time, penetrated as far north as Nebraska. The Coerebidae, 

 or sugar-birds, whose brilliancy of plumage rivals that of the hum- 

 mers, have an outlying member in Certhiola Bahamensis, of which 

 a colony has been established on one of the Florida Keys, or just 

 beyond the limits of the Neotropical realm.'" Other characteristic 

 families of South American birds are the toucans and araoaries 

 (Rhamphastidae), a strictly frugivorous group, recalling by the 

 structiu-e of the bill the distant Old World horn-bills; the jaca- 

 mars (Galbulidae) ; the saw-bills, or motmots (Prionitidae) ; the 

 Pipridae, or manakins ; the Cotingidse, or chatterers, which in- 

 clude, besides the cotingas and pompadours, the famous cock-of- 

 the-rock (Rupicola), umbrella-bird (Cephalopterus), and bell-bird 

 (Chasmorhynchus) ; the DendrocolaptidsB, or tree-creepers, with 

 upwards of two hundred species ; the wonderfully variegated tana- 

 gers (Tanagridse), with upwards of three hundred species, which 

 may in a measure be considered to occupy the place of the Tem- 

 perate Zone finches and sparrows, and of which the common scarlet 

 tanager (Pyranga rubra) and summer-redbird (Pyranga sestiva) 

 are familiar North American examples ; to the same group belong 

 the South American spice-birds of the genus Calliste, and the or- 

 ganist (Euphonia); the Cracidae, curassows and guans, which are 

 the largest game-birds of the region, and which take the place of 

 the Old World grouse and pheasants ; and the Tinamidse, or tina- 

 mous, a group of birds recalling in their general appearance the 

 partridges, and possessing certain affinities with the ostriches. The 

 exquisitely decorated trogons (Trogonidae) present us with one of 

 the most remarkable instances of a discontinuous family, whose 

 representatives are found at opposite points of the earth's equatorial 

 circumference — the Neotropical and Oriental regions. The inter- 



