AUSTRALIAN PROVINCE.— BIRDS. 117 
than the flying squirrels of North America. We might, 
indeed, almost be tempted to believe, that if there 
really exists an animal even more bird-like than the 
ornithorhynchus, whose structure would indisputably 
connect the two principal divisions of the vertebrata, — 
quadrupeds and birds, —such an animal might hereafter 
be discovered in the southern hemisphere. 
(166.) The chief distinctions of this region, fur- 
nished by its ornithology, is in the vast proportion of 
its suctorial birds, or of such as derive their principal 
support from sucking the nectar of flowers. This pe- 
culiar organisation, restricted, in Africa, India, and 
America, to the smallest birds in creation, is here de- 
veloped very generally, and is given to species fully as 
large as any of our thrushes. The melliphagous genera 
may probably be estimated to comprise nearly one fourth 
of the total number of New Holland perchers ; for not 
only does this character belong to the honey-suckers, 
properly so called (Meliphagide Sw.), but it seems to 
be possessed by a great number of the parrots. ‘The 
whole of the little green lories ( Z'richoglossus H. and V.), 
are said to possess brush-like tongues, and to lick or 
suck their food, rather than to masticate it by their 
bills. Independent of these two geographic groups, there 
is a third, still more celebrated. The whole of the 
paradise birds (Paradiside Sw.), being natives of New 
Guinea, belong to this zoological province: these, also, 
although their economy is not very well known, con- 
tain certain species whose tongues have been described 
as formed upon a similar model. The Australian pro- 
vince being thus characterised, it is only necessary to 
notice such particular portions as exhibit local pecu- 
liarities ; hence we may divide the whele region into 
three subordinate districts. The first may comprehend 
New Guinea and its adjacent islands; the second, Aus- 
tralia, properly so called, with Van Diemen’s Land, and 
New Zealand ; and the third, the numerous groups of 
smaller islands clustered in the great Pacific Ocean. 
(167.) The first division, comprehending New Gui- 
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