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. 



(16"6.) 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 {Meliphagidce Sw.), but it seems to 

 be possessed by a great number of the parrots. The 

 whole of the little green lories {Trichoglossus 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 (ParadisidcB 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 whole 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- 

 I 3 



