The beak of the sub-group
Certhidea, is shown in Figure 4. The beak of Cactornis is somewhat
like that of a starling, and that of the fourth sub-group,
Camarhynchus, is slightly parrot-shaped. Seeing this gradation and
diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of
birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of
birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified
for different ends. In a like manner it might be fancied that a
bird, originally a buzzard, had been induced here to undertake the
office of the carrion-feeding Polybori of the American continent.
Of waders and water-birds I was able to get only eleven kinds, and
of these only three (including a rail confined to the damp summits
of the islands) are new species. Considering the wandering habits
of the gulls, I was surprised to find that the species inhabiting
these islands is peculiar, but allied to one from the southern
parts of South America. The far greater peculiarity of the
land-birds, namely, twenty-five out of twenty-six being new
species, or at least new races, compared with the waders and
web-footed birds, is in accordance with the greater range which
these latter orders have in all parts of the world.
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