Of the Papuan Islands. 581 



depending for safety on their resemblance to foliage, their 

 horny shield and wing-coverts, and their spiny legs. 



The large islands to the east of IS ew Guinea are very little 

 known, but the occurrence of crimson lories, which are quite 

 absent from Australia, and of cockatoos allied to those of New 

 Guinea and the Moluccas, shows that they belong to the Papuan 

 group ; and we are thus able to define the Malay Archipelago as 

 extending eastward to the Solomon Islands. New Caledonia 

 and the New Hebrides, on the other hand, seem more nearly 

 allied to Australia ; and the rest of the islands of the Pacific, 

 though very poor in all foi'ms of life, possess a few peculiari- 

 ties which compel us to class them as a separate group. Al- 

 though as a matter of convenience I have always separated 

 the Moluccas as a distinct zoological group from New Guinea, 

 I have at the same time pointed out that its fauna was chiefly 

 derived from that island, just as that of Timor was chiefly de- 

 rived from Australia. If we were dividing the Australian 

 region for zoological purposes alone, we should form three 

 great groups : one comprising Australia, Timor, and Tasma- 

 nia ; another New Guinea, with the islands from Bouru to the 

 Solomon group ; and the third comprising the greater part of 

 the Pacific Islands. 



The relation of the New Guinea fauna to that of Australia 

 is very close. It is best marked in the Mammalia by the 

 abundance of marsupials, and the almost complete absence of 

 aU other terrestrial forms. In birds it is less striking, al- 

 though still very clear, for all the remarkable old-world forms 

 which are absent from the one are equally so from the other, 

 such as pheasants, grouse, vultures, and woodpeckers ; while 

 cockatoos, broad-tailed parrots, Podargi, and the great fami- 

 lies of the honeysuckers and brush-turkeys, with many others 

 comprising no less than twenty-four genera of land-birds, are 

 common to both countries, and are entirely confined to them. 



When we consider the wonderful dissimilarity of the two 

 regions in all those physical conditions which were once sup- 

 posed to determine the forms of life — Aiistralia, with its open 

 plains, stony deserts, dried up rivers, and changeable temper- 

 ate climate ; New Guinea, with its luxuriant forests, uniform- 

 ly hot, moist, and evergreen — this great similarity in their pro- 

 ductions is almost astounding, and unmistakably points to a 



