The Eurylæmidæ, or Broad-bills, form a very small family of birds, often adorned with striking colours, and which have their nearest allies in the South American Cotingidæ. They have a very limited distribution, from the lower slopes of the Himalayas through Burmah and Siam, to Sumatra, Borneo, and Java. They are evidently the remains of a once extensive group, and from the small number of specific forms remaining, seem to be on { 295}the road to extinction. Thus we may understand their isolated geographical position. The following are the names and distribution of the genera:--
_Eurylæmus_ (2 species), Malay Peninsula, Sumatra, Java, and Borneo; _Corydon_ (1 species), Malacca, Sumatra and Borneo (Plate IX. Vol. I. p. 339); _Psarisomus_ (1 species), Himalayas to Burmah, up to 6,000 feet; _Serilophus_ (2 species), Nepal to Tenasserim; _Cymbirhynchus_ (2 species), Siam to Sumatra and Borneo; _Calyptomena_ (1 species), Penang to Sumatra and Borneo.
FAMILY 44.--DENDROCOLAPTIDÆ. (43 Genera, 217 Species.)
GENERAL DISTRIBUTION. __________________________________/\__________________________________ / \ NEOTROPICAL| NEARCTIC |PALÆARCTIC | ETHIOPIAN | ORIENTAL | AUSTRALIAN SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS|SUB-REGIONS. -----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+-----------+------------ | | | | | 1. 2. 3 -- |-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- --|-- -- -- -- | | | | |
The Dendrocolaptidæ, or American Creepers, are curious brown-coloured birds with more or less rigid tail feathers, strictly confined to the continental Neotropical region, and very numerous in its south-temperate extremity. They are divided by Messrs. Sclater and Salvin into five sub-families, to which I shall confine my remarks on their distribution. The details of the numerous genera, being only interesting to specialists, will be given in the table of genera of the Neotropical region. No less than 13 of the genera are confined to South-Temperate America and the High Andes; 14 are restricted to Tropical South America, while not one is peculiar to Tropical North America, and only 15 of the 43 genera extend into that sub-region, showing that this is one of the pre-eminently South American groups.