THE IBIS. 
THIRD SERIES. 
No. XXIII. JULY 1876. 
XXVII .—On the Psittaci of the Mascarene Islands. 
By Alfred and Edward Newton. 
(Plate VI.) 
Unusual interest attaches itself to the members of the Order 
Psittaci indigenous to the Mascarene Islands from the fact 
that, while all of them are species peculiar thereto, the great 
majority have either already become extinct within the last 
two hundred years or must he regarded as expiring. A good 
deal of misapprehension, too, prevails as to the proper habitat 
of some of them; and this it may be desirable to correct. 
The Mascarene Islands are most conveniently considered 
to form three groups :—(1) the Seychelles; (2) Mauritius and 
Reunion (formerly Bourbon)—which, from their proximity, 
should be taken together, though there is much difference in 
the ornis of each; and (3) Rodriguez. The first group con¬ 
sists of an archipelago, the Land-birds of which have before 
been treated in this journal (Ibis, 1867, pp. 335-360); the 
second group, of the two islands just named—Mauritius, with 
a few subsidiary islets attached, and Reunion, having no such 
appendages, but rising from deep water without even the inter¬ 
vention of a coral-reef. The third group is composed of one 
ser. hi. —VOL. VI. 
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