94 
HUMMING-BIRDS. 
quarter of the world except Europe; and woodpeckers 
are wanting only to New Holland. The peregrine 
falcon, so renowned in a noble, but nearly forgotten, 
sport, has its free range over the greater part of Europe, 
America, and Greenland, and has been sent from the 
distant continent of New Holland ; the short-eared 
owl is common to Europe, Siberia, North America, and 
the neighbourhood of Canton in China, and Pennant 
mentions it as an inhabitant of the Falkland Islands ; 
the common magpie extends over Europe, has been 
sent from the Himmalayan range in India, and reaches 
to the cold regions of North America ; while specimens 
of the glossy ibis have reached this country from each 
of the four quarters of the w'orld, besides from many 
of its far distant insulated lands. 
At variance, however, with this, we sometimes also 
find the large continents possessing some peculiar 
forms ; but, as if the economy of each great land could 
not be properly supported without an organization 
somewhat analogous, there is, in most instances, a re- 
presentative, modified and adapted to the region it is 
destined to inhabit. Thus, America has the South 
American ostrich, or nandu, inhabiting the vast grassy 
pampas of Paraguay, and extending nearly to the 
Straits of Magellan ; India, and her great archipelago 
of islands, particularly the Moluccas and Borneo, 
possess the cassuary ; Africa, the true ostrich ; and 
New Holland, the emeu. The Great Sahara, and 
the deserts of Arabia, little fitted for the abode of any 
animal creation, have their peculiarities in the coursers 
