On a group of Psittacidm known to the Ancients. 59 



time exhibiting a gradual abbreviation of the tail as the bill be- 

 comes prolonged. The following outline of the succession of these 

 different groups, which it is my intention at an early period to 

 characterize more fully, and distinguish into generick divisions, 

 will afford some idea of the relative situation which PalcBornis 

 holds among them. 



Closely allied to the Maccaws, or the ,4ras of the French Orni- 

 thologists, by their general form, is a group which is represented 

 by the Psit. Guianensis of Linnaeus, or the species which M. 

 BufFon, with a happy adaptation of name to character, has distin- 

 guished as the Perruche ylra. Here the naked cheeks of the 

 preceding subfamily is lost : but a naked space, still retained 

 about the eye, exhibits the rudiments of that character, and evinces 

 the unbroken chain of affinity that unites the two groups. These 

 P arrakcet-Maccaws form a somewhat considerable genus, con- 

 fined chiefly to the New World, the native place also of the pre- 

 ceding subfamily. They are immediately met by two New Hol- 

 land groups, in which the shortened bill of the Maccaws is still 

 strongly conspicuous ; one, a group including some of the most 

 diminutive and delicately formed species of the family, such as 

 Psit. discolor^ Lath., pulchellus^ Shaw, venustus^ Temm., and 

 undulatus., Shaw, and which may be said in their general struc- 

 ture to exhibit the appearance of pigmy Maccaws; the second, a 

 group, which forms the genus Plaiycercus^ as characterized in the 

 last volume of this Journal.* This genus, it may be remembered- 

 is distinguished by its broad and depressed tail, and its lengthened 

 tarsi. In the latter of these characters it intimately accords with 

 Pezoporus 111. ; but the breadth of the tail is lost in that genus, 

 which partially assumes somewhat of the lengthened and arrow- 

 shaped form of the tail of Palceornis. In a species of this last 

 group, belonging to New Holland, P. Barrabandf, the full charac- 

 ters of the tail and of the other distinguishing peculiarities of 

 Palceornis are discernible, with the exception of the tarsi being 

 considerably longer than in the Indian species. Here then we 

 have a beautiful connection between the ambulating Purrakects of 

 Australasiiij and the weaker and shorter legged grou^uj of India. 

 I * Vol. I. p. 527. 



