100 TROPICAL NATUEE, AND OTHER ESSAYS. 



They are pre-eminently characteristic of the intertropical 

 zone, being nowhere absent within its limits (except 

 from absolutely desert regions), and they are generally 

 so abundant and so conspicuous as to occupy among 

 birds the place assigned to butterflies among insects. 

 A few species range far into the temperate zones. One 

 reaches Carolina in North America, another the Magellan 

 Straits in South America; in Africa they only .extend 

 a few degrees beyond the southern tropic ; in North- 

 western India they reach 35° North Latitude ; but in the 

 Australian region they range farthest towards the pole, 

 being found not only in New Zealand, but as far as the 

 Macquarie Islands in 54° ^outh, where the climate is very 

 cold and boisterous, but sufiiciently uniform to supply 

 vegetable food throughout the year. There is hardly any 

 part of the equatorial zone in which the traveller will 

 not soon have his attention called to some members of 

 the parrot tribe. In Brazil, the great blue and yellow or 

 crimson macaws may be seen every evening wending 

 their way homeward in pairs, almost as commonly as 

 rooks with us ; while innumerable parrots and parraquets 

 attract attention by their harsh cries when disturbed 

 from some favourite fruit-tree. In the Moluccas and 

 New Guinea, white cockatoos and gorgeous lories in 

 crimson and blue, are the very commonest of birds. 



No group of birds — perhaps no other group of animals 

 —exhibits within the same limited number of genera 

 and species, so wide a range and such an endless variety 

 of colour. As a rule parrots may be termed green birds, 

 the majority of the species having this colour as the 

 basis of their plumage relieved by caps, gorgets, bands 

 and wing-spots of other and brighter hues. Yet this 



