THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Cacatuidse and Strigopidse. The former he divided into six subfamilies : 
Pezoporinse, Arainse, Lorinse, Trichoglossinse, Nestorinae and Psittacinse ; 
the second into three subfamilies : Cacatuinse, Calyptorhynchinae and Micro- 
glossinse, the last-named family containing only a single species. 
Herein is seen the essence of progress — lack of finality — always attempting 
and endeavouring to improve upon what has been done. 
Sundevall, a couple of years later, called the group a cohort, and recognised 
six families : Camptolophini, Androglossini, Conurini, Platycercini, Stringo- 
pini and Trichoglossini, the first five forming the Psittaci proprii, and the 
last Psittaci orthognathi. 
Reichenow in 1881 provided a Conspectus, in which he admitted nine 
families: Stringopidse, Plissolophidse, Platycercidse, Micropsittacidae, Tricho- 
glossidae, Palseornithidse, Psittacidae, Conuridse and Pionidse. It will be 
noted that this was quite a novel rearrangement 
Garrod had previously furnished the results of an investigation into 
particular points of the anatomy of Parrots and provided a scheme, which 
was obviously incompetent, to express the facts. The most careless student 
would protest against the association of some of the groups, brought together 
through the consideration of a single feature. 
Salvadori wrote the Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, Vol. XX., 
which dealt with this Group. It was published in 1891, twenty -five years 
ago. The accuracy and painstaking care manifested by Salvadori in all his 
works is seen here, and in the Preface he apologised as follows : 
“It is well known to Ornithologists that the Classification of Parrots 
has been a very difficult problem, and I am sorry to say that I cannot offer 
results that will settle the question. Those at which Mr. Garrod arrived are far 
from being satisfactory. 
“ The classification I have followed in this volume agrees to a certain 
extent with that of Sundevall, who divided the Parrots into Psittaci proprii 
and Psittaci orthognathi. As to the families, I have found that those admitted 
by Dr. Reichenow in his excellent ‘ Conspectus Psittacorum ’ are the most 
natural and can be defined without much difficulty. In a few points I had 
to differ from him. I have withdrawn the genus Nestor from the Cacatuidce, 
and made it the type of a distinct family, as has already been proposed by 
others ; from the Cacatuidce I have separated also the genus Dasyptilus and 
united it with the Psittacince (restricted), although I am not quite sure about 
this being the right place. Moreover, the genera Polytelis, Ptistes, Apros- 
mictus and Pyrrhulopsis, having a well-formed furcula, have been separated 
by me from the Platycercince and arranged with the Palceornithince, and the 
genera Pezoporus and Geopsittacus have been again united with the Platycercini , 
4 
