These insects are sluggish in their motions, depending for safety on their resemblance to foliage, their horny shield and wing-coverts, and their spiny legs.
The large islands to the east of New Guinea are very little known, but the occurrence of crimson lories, which are quite absent from Australia, and of cockatoos allied to those of New Guinea and the Moluccas, shows that they belong to the Papuan group; and we are thus able to define the Malay Archipelago as extending eastward to the Solomon's Islands.

New Caledonia and the New Hebrides, on the other hand, seem more nearly allied to Australia; and the rest of the islands of the Pacific, though very poor in all forms of life, possess a few peculiarities which compel us to class them as a separate group.

Although as a matter of convenience I have always separated the Moluccas as a distinct zoological group from New Guinea, I have at the same time pointed out that its fauna was chiefly derived from that island, just as that of Timor was chiefly derived from Australia.

If we were dividing the Australian region for zoological purposes alone, we should form three great groups: one comprising Australia, Timor, and Tasmania; another New Guinea, with the islands from Bouru to the Solomon's group; and the third comprising the greater part of the Pacific Islands.
The relation of the New Guinea fauna to that of Australia is very close.
It is best marked in the Mammalia by the abundance of marsupials, and the almost complete absence of all other terrestrial forms.

In birds it is less striking, although still very clear, for all the remarkable old-world forms which are absent from the one are equally so from the other, such as Pheasants, Grouse, Vultures, and Woodpeckers; while Cockatoos, Broad-tailed Parrots, Podargi, and the great families of the Honeysuckers and Brush-turkeys, with many others, comprising no less than twenty-four genera of land-birds, are common to both countries, and are entirely confined to them.
When we consider the wonderful dissimilarity of the two regions in all those physical conditions which were once supposed to determine the forms of life-Australia, with its open plains, stony deserts, dried up rivers, and changeable temperate climate; New Guinea, with its luxuriant forests, uniformly hot, moist, and evergreen--this great similarity in their productions is almost astounding, and unmistakeably points to a common origin.