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parrots, cockatoos, and lories, almost all of which are beautiful; and of pigeons, more than half of which are very beautiful; as well as to the numerous kingfishers, most of which are excessively brilliant. Then we have the absence of thrushes, and the very small numbers of the warblers, shrikes, and Timaliida, which are dull-coloured groups; and, lastly, the presence of numerous gay pittas, flycatchers, and the unequalled family of paradise-birds. A large number of birds adorned with metallic plumage is also a marked feature of this fauna, more than a dozen genera being so distinguished. Among the remarkable forms are Peltops, a flycatcher, long classed as one of the Indo-Malayan Eurylæmidæ, which it resembles both in bill and coloration; Machærirhynchus, curious little boat-billed flycatchers; and Todopsis, a group of terrestrial flycatchers with the brilliant colours of Pitta or Malurus. The paradise-birds present the most wonderful developments of plumage and the most gorgeous varieties of colour, to be found among passerine birds. The great whiskered-swift, the handsomest bird in the entire family, has its head-quarters here. Among kingfishers the elegant long-tailed Tanysiptera are preeminent, whether for singularity or beauty. Among parrots, New Guinea possesses the great black cockatoo, one of the largest and most singular birds in the order; Nasiterna, the smallest of known parrots; and Charmosyna, perhaps the most elegant. Lastly, among the pigeons we have the fine crowned-pigeons, the largest and most remarkable group of the order.

Plate X. Illustrating the Ornithology of New Guinea.-The wonderful ornithological fauna we have just sketched, could only be properly represented in a series of elaborate coloured plates. We are obliged here to confine ourselves to representing a few of the more remarkable types of form, as samples of the great number that adorn this teeming bird-land. The large central figure is the fine twelve-wired paradise-bird (Seleucides albus), one of the most beautiful and remarkable of the family. Its general plumage appears, at first sight, to be velvety black; but on closer examination, and by holding the bird in various lights, it is found that every part of it glows with the most exquisite metallic tints-rich bronze, intense violet, and, on the

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