Mr. A. R. Wallace on the Psittacidse. 147 



XVIII. — Correction of an Important Error affecting the Classifi- 

 cation of the Psittacidse. By Alfred R. Wallace. 



A VERY beautiful section of the Parrot tribe inhabits the Mo- 

 luccas, New Guinea, Australia, and the Pacific Islands, distin- 

 guished by the peculiar structure of the tongue, which has the 

 appearance of being covered with a brush. This is not, how- 

 ever, formed by hairs, but by papillse or fibres, which rise in 

 longitudinal rows on each side of the upper surface of the tongue, 

 and can be opened or expanded on each side of the median line, 

 or depressed in such a manner as to be hardly perceptible. The 

 birds possessing this structure form the subfamily of the Tri- 

 choglossince or *^ brush-ton gued Parroquets,^' and are of small 

 or moderate size, of elegant forms, and ornamented with the 

 most brilliant colours — crimson, with blue, purple, and black, or 

 with green and yellow. 



I first became acquainted with these birds, so as to examine 

 their peculiarities, in the Aru Islands, where species of Tricho- 

 glossus and Chalcopsitta are found, and afterwards in Amboyna, 

 where the Eos rubra is abundant. It was there that I was struck 

 by the remarkable similarity in form, structure of the bill and 

 feet, and texture of the plumage, existing between these and the 

 Lories, several species of which, of the genus Domicella of Wagler 

 (namely, Psittacus domicella, P. lory, and P. garrulus of Lin- 

 naeus), are commonly domesticated in the Moluccas. But the 

 character of the genus Domicella is to have a smooth, simple 

 tongue ; and on that account these birds, and some others of the 

 genera Eclectus and Psittacodis, have been formed into the sub- 

 family Loriince or " true Lories/^ 



It was not, however, till I reached Gilolo and New Guinea that 

 I had an opportunity of examining any of the above-named spe- 

 cies, when what was my surprise to find that both in ihQD.gar- 

 rula, Wagl., of Gilolo, and in the D. lory, Wagl., of New Guinea, 

 the tongue has precisely the same structure as m Trichoglossus and 

 Eos ! At first I could hardly credit my senses ; for both species 

 are common alive in Europe. Wagler says of both, '' multas vivas 

 vidi f and also that he has dissected D. garrula ; yet he says of 

 the genus, " lingua simplex, glabra,^^ and of the species, " lingua 

 integra." It was only after examining some dozens of specimens, 

 including two or three that had died in captivity, that I became 

 convinced that the tongue was universally papillate or bnish- 

 tipped. 



This discovery cleared up a great difficulty — that of the ab- 

 solute identity in the external form and structure of the Lories 

 and some of the Trichoglossinae, while they were supposed to 

 belong in reality to distinct groups ; for an essential structural 



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