Australian Birds in the Collection of the Linnean Society. 309 
their food, unlike that of the other families, is represented as 
being exclusively on the wing. By the brilliancy again, and 
ring lustre of their colours, these ** gay creatures of the ele- 
ment" evince their separation from the neighbouring groups, 
and indeed from every other race of birds, of which the manners 
are less aërial than their own, and the food less sublimated than 
the nectar of flowers. 
In the New World again, a third group appears, the family 
of Nectariniade, in which a comparative strength of bill and legs 
is exhibited, nearly equal to that which is found in many of the 
more typical species of the Insessores. The wings are generally 
shorter than those of the Cinnyride, and differ in their structure 
also from them, the first quill-feather being long, almost equalling 
the second in length, while that of the Old World family is short, 
and, as before observed, nearly spurious. The tail in all the spe- 
cies we have met with is even. "These birds, distinguished by 
their stronger conformation from those of cu rare Group, are 
ished also by their habits. The | exclusively 
on the wing, but explore the nectaries of user as they hop 
from branch to branch*. By their colours also they may be set 
apart from the typical families. These, although in most spe- 
cies bright and vivid, are decided colours, and not changeable in 
different lights. 
- In addition to these groups Australia furnishes another im- 
portant accession to the Tenuirostres. No species of the before- 
mentioned groups has hitherto been found in that country ; and 
their place seems to be occupied by a group of considerable 
extent, which preserve the same habits of feeding on vegetable 
juices, but deviate from the typical character of the Tribe even 
still further than the Nectariniade.. In the birds to which I 
allude, or the family of Meliphagide, the wings and tail show 
an evident deficiency in the powers of flight, compared with 
* See these Transactions, vol. xiv. p. 464. 
the 
