330 
GEOGRAPHICAL 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 Gonurus 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 Kiver. In Tndia 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, Platycercidse, Cacatuidae, 
Nestoridae, 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 Dusyptilus. 
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 
