PELECANIFOEMES. 
The differential characters of the genera will be fnlly discussed in their 
place, but the Australian species number five and these are allotted to 
four genera. 
The first, Phalacrocorax, is represented throughout the whole of the 
Old World and on the eastern coast of North America. The Australian 
representative is simply a subspecies of the single species which thus has 
such a wide range. 
The second genus, Mesocarbo, seems to be confined to Australia and 
New Zealand. 
The third genus, Hypoleucus, of which two members are found mostly 
in Southern Australia, although ranging to Queensland, is Subantarctic in 
distribution, many species occurring at New Zealand, South America, 
Falkland Islands and Kerguelen Land. 
The fourth, Microcarbo, though extending to New Zealand, is an 
immigrant into Australia from the North, though now the commonest 
member of the family. Its relations are with the South European 
M. pygm(Bus, which ranges into Eastern Asia, and M. javanicus, which continues 
from India to Borneo. 
The lumping of aU these different forms into one genus loses sight of 
such peculiar distribution as the preceding, which is clearly observed by 
means of natural genera. 
The sole representative of the second family Anhingidce is, however, 
referable to the genus Anhinga {Plotus) which is divisible into four species, 
one of which lives in tropical and subtropical America, the second in Africa, 
the third in Southern Asia and the last practically confined to Australia 
but occurring in Southern New Guinea. Here no subdivision is practicable, 
and when such is shown in conjunction with similarly constituted genera 
the lessons of distribution become well marked. 
To the family Sulidce, the genus Sula of Brisson 1760, and Ogilvie- 
Grant 1898, four species are referred, each in my opinion referable to a 
distinct genus. 
Again by means of such genera distributional facts of great value are 
shown. 
Thus Sula Brisson is typified by the Pelecanus sula Linne, and this 
is a smallish Gannet of white coloration : it is confined to the Tropics and 
Subtropics ranging throughout the Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific Oceans. So 
little differentiation can be observed that Ogilvie-Grant considered that only 
one form was recognisable. Good subspecific characters seem howev^er to 
exist in the coloration of the “ soft parts.” The plumage changes also need 
careful study, but no long series have yet been collected on account of the size 
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