The birds of paradise, the racquet-tailed kingfishers, Tanysiptera, the largest and smallest of parrots, Calyptorhynchus and Nasiterna, and the great crowned pigeons, Goura, are very characteristic; and so are the various Megapodes.
The first volume of a Histoire naturelle des perroquets, a companion work by the same author, appeared in the same year, and is truly a monograph, since the parrots constitute a family of birds so naturally severed from all others that there has rarely been anything else confounded with them.
Of birds some 30 kinds are known, an owl being the only bird of prey; parrots, pigeons, kingfishers, honey-suckers, rails, ducks, and other water birds are numerous.
The Phasianidae (exclusive of true Phasianus) are highly characteristic of this region, as are likewise certain genera of barbets (Megalaeraa), parrots (Palaeornis), and crows (Dendrocitta, Urocissa and Cissa).
This condition occurs in the Ratitae as well as in the well-flying Platyrcecinae amongst parrots.
