Among Its Sixteen Kingfishers,
It Possesses The Carious Hook-Billed Macrorhina, And A Red And
Blue Tanysiptera, The Most Beautiful
Of that beautiful genus.
Among its perching birds are the fine genus of crow-like
starlings, with brilliant plumage (Manucodia)
; The carious pale-
coloured crow (Gymnocorvus senex); the abnormal red and black
flycatcher (Peltops blainvillii); the curious little boat-billed
flycatchers (Machaerirhynchus); and the elegant blue flycatcher-
wrens (Todopsis).
The naturalist will obtain a clearer idea of the variety and
interest of the productions of this country, by the statement,
that its land birds belong to 108 genera, of which 20 are
exclusively characteristic of it; while 35 belong to that limited
area which includes the Moluccas and North Australia, and whose
species of these genera have been entirely derived from New
Guinea. About one-half of the New Guinea genera are found also in
Australia, about one-third in India and the Indo-Malay islands.
A very curious fact, not hitherto sufficiently noticed, is the
appearance of a pure Malay element in the birds of New Guinea. We
find two species of Eupetes, a curious Malayan genus allied to
the forked-tail water-chats; two of Alcippe, an Indian and Malay
wren-like form; an Arachnothera, quite resembling the spider-
catching honeysuckers of Malacca; two species of Gracula, the
Mynahs of India; and a curious little black Prionochilus, a saw-
billed fruit pecker, undoubtedly allied to the Malayan form,
although perhaps a distinct genus. Now not one of these birds, or
anything allied to them, occurs in the Moluccas, or (with one
exception) in Celebes or Australia; and as they are most of them
birds of short flight, it is very difficult to conceive how or
when they could have crossed the space of more than a thousand
miles, which now separates them from their nearest allies.
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