168 
Birds of Celebes: Psittacidae. 
Papuasia when the whole was one undivided mass of land, and developed into 
distinct species when it became isolated by the breaking up of this ancient 
continent into the present archipelago. The family of the Psittacidae is in all 
probability an old one, existing at least from Miocene times. Unfortunately our 
knowledge of fossil Psittacidae is utterly defective as yet. Only Psittacus ver- 
reauoci M.-E. of the Lower Miocene of Allier proves that in a milder climate 
Europe was then inhabited by parrots. Extinct species or genera from other 
quarters (the Mascarenes, Seychelles, Comoros, and West Indies — from 
Rodriguez probably allied to Eclectus) are more or less subfossil only. As Prof. 
Fhrbringer says (p. 1574): 
“The palaeogeography of birds, as based on real finds, still stands on utterly 
weak legs: only single spots here and there of the earth have as yet been in- 
vestigated, and discoveries, available for the phytogeny of the bird-class, are 
restricted to very few localities in Europe and North America. However the 
geography of living forms allows of some conclusions. Every ornithologist knows 
the brilliant reasonings of Wallace, the genial conclusions, attained by this author 
as to the early history of the distribution of birds. Whom d*o they not cap- 
tivate, whom do they not induce to make some steps on the same route? Their 
formal value cannot be too highly appreciated. But sober investigation knows, 
that nearly everywhere only probabilities come into question here, nay, to a 
great extent even possibilities only, which may be controverted by other, not 
less justified suppositions. Very many families may have originated in the 
oriental region, but more cannot be said now-a-days. Our conclusions as to 
the distribution of land and water and as to other separating barriers ofier 
some probability only for the caenozoic era; as to the condition before the 
Eocene we can only make suppositions. And at this period all suborders and 
gentes of the lower and the far greater number of those of the higher birds 
very probably were already defined. If someone were to assert that there was 
a nearly universal distribution of all the various chief-types at this period when 
the climate was everywhere fairly uniform and explain their later localisation 
in one region or the other by secondary extinction in the others — no one 
could offer sure counter-proofs. The possible decisions pro and contra, based 
upon the present geographical and morphological conditions, have nothing more 
than a greater or less degree of probability. ” Further p. 1572: “That in the 
beginning of the Eocene higher birds were already represented, proves, that the 
beginnings of the specialization of the subordines and gentes in view at least 
already took place at the end of the cretaceous period. It is even very possible 
that this occurred still earlier, for no one can assert that merely with these 
poor finds in our hands we already possess the typical forms of those times; 
the upper cretaceous, especially in its marine deposits, probably contains a 
great variety of such types as yet undiscovered.” And p. 1109: 
“Already the Eocene shows us forms which appear to be built after the 
specialized type of the now-living bird-divisions . . . The variety of Eocene 
