Among the native Australian birds are a vast number of the parrot tribe, comprehending paroquets, cockatoos, and others, many of them distinguished by the most beautiful plumage. Of birds of prey, eagles, falcons, and hawks are numerous, as well as several owls. The largest among the feathered tribes of Australia is the emu, or cassowary--a bird of the ostrich kind, though of rather inferior size to the African ostrich. It is found chiefly in the southern portions of the continent, but is yearly becoming scarcer under the advance of the settlers.[10] The scattered islands of the Pacific which, under the name of Polynesia, constitute, in modern geography, one of the divisions of the globe, can hardly be regarded as a distinct zoological region, so obviously has their animal life been derived from other lands. When first visited by European navigators, little more than a century since, the largest quadruped found in the Polynesian groups was the hog, which had probably accompanied the tribes of mankind by whom they were peopled. The only other land animals were the dog, mouse, and lizard, with a few rats. There were but few reptiles, or insects; fleas, scorpions, cockroaches, and other vermin have since been introduced. The native fauna of New Zealand is hardly less scanty than that of the smaller groups of the Pacific. The largest animal found there by the first European settlers was the pig, which is probably not indigenous, though it has reverted to a state of nature. Dogs are the only beasts of prey: a few rats and mice complete the list of its Mammalia. There are no marsupials, though New Zealand is nearer by many thousand miles to Australia than to any of the other continents. The feathered tribes are equally few in number, but they include at least one species--now fast approaching extinction--the apteryx (wingless bird), which has no representative elsewhere. The moa, a bird of the ostrich kind, appears to have become extinct within the Nineteenth Century. CETACEA --PETER MARK ROGET