Even in this
respect, however, the Australian life-region still bears an antiquated
and undeveloped aspect. Nowhere else in the world do we find those very
oldest types of birds represented by the cassowaries, the emus, and the
mooruk of New Britain. The extreme term in this exceedingly ancient set
of creature is given us by the wingless bird, the apteryx or kiwi of New
Zealand, whose feathers nearly resemble hair, and whose grotesque
appearance makes it as much a wonder in its own class as the
puzzle-monkey and the casuarina are among forest trees. No feathered
creatures so closely approach the lizard-tailed birds of the oolite or
the toothed birds of the cretaceous period as do these Australian and
New Zealand emus and apteryxes. Again, while many characteristic
Oriental families are quite absent, like the vultures, woodpeckers,
pheasants and bulbuls, the Australian region has many other fairly
ancient birds, found nowhere else on the surface of our modern planet.
Such are the so-called brush turkeys and mound builders, the only
feathered things that never sit upon their own eggs, but allow them to
be hatched, after the fashion of reptiles, by the heat of the sand or of
fermenting vegetable matter. The piping crows, the honey-suckers, the
lyre-birds, and the more-porks are all peculiar to the Australian
region. So are the wonderful and aesthetic bower-birds. Brush-tongued
lories, black cockatoos, and gorgeously coloured pigeons, though
somewhat less antique, perhaps, in type, give a special character to the
bird-life of the country.
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