472 



NOTE ON THE OCCURRENCE IN VICTORIA OF A 



PHASE OF THE SUBSPECIES PARDALOTUS 



ASSnilLIS, RAMSAY.* 



By Robert Hall. 



(Communicated hy the Secretary.) 



The name Pardalotus assimilis was first used by Dr. Ramsay 

 in his "Tabular List of all the Australian Birds at present 

 known" (P.L.S.N.S.W. ii. Part 2, p. 180, 1877), without any 

 description being given beyond what is contained in a footnote 

 as follows: — "Tips of spurious wings ahvays orange-red, never 

 yelloiu as in P. aj/inis." The species is again dealt with in the 

 same partial manner in the later edition of the "Tabular List" 

 (1888, p. 4); and no detailed description appears yet to have been 

 published. 



In Vol. X. of the British Museum Catalogue of Birds (1885, 

 p. 56), Dr. Sharpe ranks P. assimilis as a subspecies of P. affinis, 

 and thus speaks of it : "I find, moreovei', that all the birds for 

 which I propose to adopt Ramsay's name of P. assimilis have, as 

 a rule, the third and fourth primaries edged with white, the third 

 for two-thirds of its length, the fourth only near the base, but 

 varying in extent and sometimes extending a good way up the 

 edge of the feather." But Dr. Sharpe omits to paticularise the 



* The substance of this Note was contained in a Paper read at the 

 Society's Meeting in May last, entitled " Description of a new Pardalote, 

 its Nest and Eggs." At tiiis time no opportunity of comparing the 

 specimens treated of with undoubted specimens of P. assimilis, Rams., 

 had offered. Subsequently, per favour of Mr. A. J. North, they were 

 compared with the fine series of skins of P. assimilis in the collection of 

 the Australian Museum, Sydney, witli the result that there was no option 

 but to consider them as a phase of P. assimilis. The paper was there- 

 fore, by permission of the Council, withdrawn. — Ed. 



