The geographical distribution of animals, with a study of the relations ...

—;chap, xiu.] THE AUSTRALIAN REGION. 445that the number will be very largely increased. Some of thespecies, as the Eudynamis taitensis and Tatare longirostris, rangeover 40° of longitude, from the Fiji Islands to the Marquesas. Inother genera, as Cyanommplms and Ptilopus, each importantisland or group of islands, has its peculiar species. The connectionof all these islands with each other, on the one hand, andtheir close relation to the Australian region, on the other, areequally apparent ; but we have no sufficient materials for speculatingwith any success, on the long series of changes that havebrought about their existing condition, as regards their peculiarforms of animal life.Sandwich Islands.—Thissomewhat extensive group of largeislands, is only known to contain 11 genera and 18 species ofindigenous land-birds ; and even of this small number, two birdsof prey are wide ranging species, which may well have reached theislands during their present isolated condition. These latter are,Strix delicatula, an owl spread over Australia and the Pacific;and Asio accipitrinus, a species which has reached the Galapagosfrom S. America, and thence perhaps the Sandwich Islands.the remaining 8 genera, one is a crow (Corvus hawaiensis), andOfanother a fishing eagle (Pandion solitarius), of peculiar species;leaving 7 genera, which are all (according to Mr. Sclater) peculiar.First we have Chasiempis, a genus of Muscicapidse, containingtwo species (which may however belong to distinct genera) ;andas the entire family is unknown on the American continentthese birds must almost certainly be allied to some of thenumerous Muscicapine forms of the Australian region. Nextwe have the purely Australian family Meliphagida?, representedby two genera, Moho, an isolated form, and Chwtoptila, a genusestablished by Mr. Sclater for a bird before classed in Entomyza,an Australian group. The four remaining genera are believedby Mr. Sclater to belong to one group, the Drepanididse, altogetherconfined to the Sandwich Islands. Two of them, Drepanis andHemignathus, with three species each, are undoubtedly alliedthe other two, Loxops and Psittirostra, have usually been classedas finches. The former seem to approach the Dicaeidse; and allresemble this group in their coloration.