Family MELITHREPTID^. 
The Honey-eaters of Australia constitute one of the composite unnatural 
groups which characterise geographical divisions and show one remarkable 
feature, in this instance the brush tongue. This was seized upon as a valuable 
feature one hundred years ago and has since been utilised, apparently for the 
sake of convenience, because it is obvious that the birds so classed are not 
phylogenetically so closely related as the possession of this one peculiar feature 
might imply. 
Historically, the feature apparently first attracted the attention of Mr. 
Anderson, who accompanied Cook’s Last Voyage, and in his Manuscripts, 
preserved in the British Museum, he had created a new genus, Anthophagus, 
for this group. Latham accepted this and used it in his MS. for his second 
edition of his Index Omithologicus which was never published. In 1828, 
however, Jennings published Latham’s name, but by this time it had been 
anticipated and the name moreover used in another connection. 
The first published name is Meliphaga given by Lewin and this has been 
commonly used, but the name had been also anticipated under a slightly 
different spelling for an insect. 
Then Melithreptus was proposed by Vieillot for the same series, but as 
only one species was indicated at the time of its first publication its status 
is clear, while it becomes the basis of the family name as above given. This 
so-called family contains species of minute size as well as species of large size 
and of much varied appearance and, as far as can be gauged from a superficial 
examination, of very varied origin. 
At the request of Mr. A. J. Campbell a report on the Osteology of the Red 
Wattle-bird ( Anthochcera carunculata) was prepared by Dr. Shufeldt and 
published in the Emu, Vol. XIII., pp. 1-14, 1913. It is difficult from this 
essay to understand what constitutes a Meliphagine bird, the only point of 
importance given by Shufeldt being that Acanthorhynchus is a Sun-Bird. 
How the Sun-Birds differ from the Honey-eaters as a whole is not 
stated, and as he had only half a dozen forms, I cannot state whether 
all the “ Myzomeline ” birds are Sun-Birds or Honey-eaters. 
Again, as Shuveldt concludes that Anthochcera carunculata comes nearer 
to Prosthemadera novcezealandice than it does to Entomyza cyanotis, and that 
the skull of Prosthemadera novcezealandice is very peculiar, it will be recognised 
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