54 ZOOLOGICAL LITERATURE. 
divided into three sub-regions, (1) Australia, (2) the Paeific 
Islands, and (3) the Austro-Malayan Islands, which comprehend 
Celebes, the Moluccas, and New Guinea. This last sub-region 
is shown to be much the richest in Families, Genera, and Species, 
and Mr. Wallace therefore concludes that it consists of a portion 
of that country to which the P sit tad were once restricted. 
The most highly organized group is the Ti'ichoglossidce, in 
which the whole structure is adapted to flower-feeding habits. 
These birds are spread over the entire Australian region, to 
which they are strictly confined, but they are especially abun- 
dant and varied in the Anstro-Malayan islands, where four out 
of the six genera are exclusively found. Three of them form 
' the group Loriincej in which the normal green ground-colour of 
the Psittad is replaced by bright crimson. The Lories are 
found only in a very limited tract, which curiously enough is 
coincident with the range of the remarkable genus of true 
Ps\ttadd(By BdectuSj having a somewhat similar style of colora- 
tion. This tract comprises New Guinea, and the islands 
directly east and west of it from the Moluccas to the Solomon 
Islands, the products of all of which are so closely allied, as to 
suggest the idea that they are the fragments of a once continuous 
land. This small district is extremely rich in Parrots j no less 
than fifty-four species and fifteen genera inhabit it, and eight of 
the genera are peculiar to it. But yet New Guinea itself, un- 
doubtedly the richest portion of this tract, is unexplored, so 
that we can only be supposed to know its Ornis in part. For these 
and; some other re?isons the author believes that New Guinea is 
the still existing portion of what was once the great tropical 
Pacific continent, and that in the crimson Lories, the black 
Mio'oglossumy the Birds of Paradise, and the great Crowned 
Pigeons, we have, but a remnant and a sample of the strange 
and beautiful forms of life that once inhabited it, and many of 
which may still remain to be discovered in the untrodden Papuan 
forests.^^ 
The remaining four of the difierent families into which Mr. 
Wallace divides the Psittad — Plyctolophidce, Platycerpidce, Stri- 
gopida and Psittaddee — are next passed in review and their 
geographical distribution indicated. The curious connexion 
between Celebes and the Philippines, as shown by the strange 
genus Prioniturus, as well as by other birds and a few mammals 
and insects, is noticed, and the excessive poverty of the western 
part of the archipelago is pointed out as strongly confirming 
the division of the Australian and Indian regions before made 
by the author (Ibis, 1859, pp. 449-454). 
Mr. Wallace considers the Psittad as one of the primary 
divisions or orders in the class Aves, and cites in support of this 
view reasons drawn from their many and striking peculiarities 
of structure, habits, and distribution. This valuable paper is 
