THE AMERICAN FAUNA AND ITS ORIGIN. 
197 
Aves or Birds. 
The Avian Fauna of America is conspicuously large and 
varied, much of it displaying vividly coloured plumage. Forests 
of vast extent in low-lying tropical regions are the habitats of 
innumerable species of insects, and so abundant food is provided 
for birds while uplands, hills, and mountains rising above the 
snow-line favour both the abundance and the richly varied 
bird-life of America. 
Of the order Passeres, which includes sparrow-like and 
perching birds, and comprises nearly 6,000 species, a larger 
number than any other order of birds, there are twenty-eight 
out of fifty-one families represented in America, and of these 
fourteen are peculiar to the JS r ew World, while twenty-three Old 
World families of Passeres are absent from America. Dr. 
Eussell Wallace estimates the number of species of Passeres 
in the Neotropical region at no less than 1,900. 
The order Picarise, including such birds as woodpeckers, 
kingfishers, and many richly plumaged birds, is especially 
conspicuous in America, to which seven of its twenty-five 
families are confined. Certainly the most remarkable 
feature of American ornithology is that afforded by the 390 
species of one of the families of Picarise, the Trochilidae or 
humming birds. This highly differentiated family of small 
birds with refulgent plumage, as has been before noted, is 
entirely confined to the Flew World and almost restricted to the 
Neotropical region, for the Nearctic region gives only six of the 
390 species. In Central America there are 100 species, fifteen 
in the West Indies and 290 species in South America proper. 
Parrots, macaws and the like, forming the order Psittaci, are 
almost confined to the tropics, and in the Neotropical region 
are two families of Psittaci, Conuridse and Psittacidaj, giving 141 
species. 
The Conuridse are exclusively American, and one species 
ranges as far southwards as the Straits of Magellan, and another 
ranges northwards into the United States. 
The order Columbse, or pigeons, has in America about eighty 
species, chiefly inhabiting the Neotropical region. These birds 
are relatively less abundant in America than in the Australian 
region, and appear to favour islands rather than continents. 
The Gal li rue, poultry and game birds, are well represented in 
the New World, although the type genus Gallus, our common 
fowl, is wanting, as are also the peacock and sand grouse, while 
the turkey, Meleayris, is an essentially American bird. 
