and the peculiar hoazin, represented by a single species found in Guiana and Brazil.
The eight orders under which the birds of North America have been arranged (other classifications, however, have been adopted by various naturalists) have again been subdivided into families, genera, species, etc. According to Wallace's summary, the 8 orders referred to contain 124 families, of which 75 are not represented in North America to the north of the lowlands of Mexico, while 47 families are present. Of these 47 families, 25 are essentially of world-wide distribution, and only 1, containing a single species, a small wren-like bird of the genus Chamæa, found in California, is peculiar to the fauna of the continent.
As the North American continent under the arrangement adopted for the series of books of which the one in hand forms a part, is considered as including the West Indies, Mexico, and Central America, the above summary does not represent its entire bird fauna, but presents, perhaps, the best general idea of it that is at present attainable. To include the birds of the tropical portion of the continent would add greatly to the number of species, but I believe not materially to the number of families and orders, as given above.
In reviewing the distribution of the land birds of North America to the north of Mexico, but including lower California, J. A. Allen places the total number of genera, as given in the check-list of the American Ornithologists' Union, at 181. Of these, 55, or 30 per cent, are circumpolar or otherwise wide-ranging Old World forms; 126 genera, or 70 per cent, are American, of which 35, or 28 per cent, are essentially tropical, leaving 91 genera, or about 50 per cent, as distinctly North American.
The number of species in the avifauna of the continent, according to the latest check-list published by the American Ornithologists' Union (1895), is 768, together with a large number of subspecies. If the tropical portion of the continent were included, this number would be greatly increased and possibly doubled.
A further generalization has been advanced by Allen, who states that in the arctic portion of the continent the number of genera of birds present during the breeding season is 65, of which only 5 are exclusively American. In the cold temperate belt 120 genera are represented, of which 98 are circumpolar and 22 American. In the warm temperate belt 95 genera occur which do not range into the cold temperate belt, and of these only 12 are Old World forms, while 83 are exclusively American, and in addition 60 genera are common to both the cold and the warm temperate zone, of which 46 are represented in the fauna of the Old World, while 14 are American. This gives 155 genera for the warm temperate zone, of which 58 are Old World and 97 exclusively American. There are besides 50 essentially tropical genera which extend into the warm temperate zone, of which 43 are American and 7 tropicopolitan. The avifauna of the warm temperate zone thus contains a total of 205 genera.
The above enumeration indicates the rapid increase in the variety of bird life met with as one travels from the arctic to the Gulf coast of the continent, and in this connection it is to be remembered that the land contracts in breadth towards the south. In number of individuals, however, it is doubtful if there are less per square mile at the north than at the south during the breeding season.
There is a decrease in the number of Old World forms inhabiting North America from north to south. A similar decrease in mammalian species common to America and Eurasia has previously been referred to, and the same explanation applies in each case, namely, the near approach of the land areas of the Old and the New World at the north, and the actual union of the two continents in late geological time.
As has been shown by Allen, the species of birds of the temperate and boreal zones of North America were derived in part from the Old World, in part from types almost universally distributed throughout the warmer latitudes, and in part from tropical America, but to a marked extent the species present developed where they are now