342 
GEOGRAPHICAL ZOOLOGY. 
[PART IV. 
islands and sand-banks, and can evidently pass over a few miles 
of sea with ease ; but the Nicobar bird is a very different case, 
because none of the numerous intervening islands offer a single 
example of the family. Instead of being a well-marked and 
clearly differentiated form, as we should expect to find it if its 
remote and isolated habitat were due to natural causes, it so 
nearly resembles some of the closely-allied species of the Moluc- 
cas and New Guinea, that, had it been found with them, it would 
hardly have been thought specifically extinct. I therefore 
believe that it is probably an introduction by the Malays, and 
that, owing to the absence of enemies and general suitability of 
conditions, it has thriven in the islands and has become slightly 
differentiated in colour from the parent stock. The following is 
the distribution of the genera at present known : — 
Talegallus (2 sp.), New Guinea and East Australia ; Megace- 
phalon (1 sp.), East Celebes ; Lipoa (1 sp.), South Australia ; 
Megapodius (16 sp.), Philippine Islands and Celebes, to Timor, 
North Australia, New Caledonia, the Marian and Samoa Islands, 
and probably every intervening island, — also a species (doubtfully 
indigenous) in the Nicobar Islands. 
Family 91. — CBACIDrE. (12 Genera, 53 Species.) 
General Distribution. 
Neotropical 
Sub-regions. 
Nearctic 
Sub-regions. 
Palje arctic 
Sub-regions. 
Ethiopian 
Sub-regions. 
Oriental 
Sub-regions. 
Australian 
Sub-regions. 
— 2,3 — 
(Messrs. Sclater and Salvin’s arrangement is here followed). 
The Cracidae, or Curassows and Guans, comprise the largest 
and handsomest game-birds of the Neotropical region, where 
they take the place of the grouse and pheasants of the Old 
World. They are almost all forest-dwellers, and are a strictly 
Neotropical family, only one species just entering the Nearctic 
region as far as New Mexico. They extend southward to Para- 
guay and the extreme south of Brazil, but none are found in the 
