OF NEW SOUTH WALES. 197 



Mr. E. P. Ramsay, the Curator of the Australian Museum, 

 exhibited a skin of a supposed new species of Poephila, a very 

 beautiful species of finch from the table-lands some 60 miles inland 

 from Rockingham Bay, North-East Australia, and made the fol- 

 lowing remarks : — 



"This bird, although closely allied to Poephila gouldice {Gould), 

 might be considered a distinct species, on account of the differences 

 in the tint of coloring which pervades the pectoral band, the color 

 of the under tail-coverts, and the lengthened form of the centre 

 two tail feathers. If Poephila gouldice and P. mirabilis (Homb. 

 and Jacq.) be really distinct species as stated by Mr. Gould, 

 then the present bird must be looked upon as a third, closely allied, 

 and intermediate species ; but if otherwise, then this will probably 

 prove to be identical with P. gouldice, and that species to be the 

 female of P. mirabilis, as originally stated by Messrs. Hombron 

 and Jacquinot (Bomb, and J acq. Toy. au Pole Sud.) The length- 

 ened tail feathers, and narrow line of blue feathers which surrounds 

 the black face and throat of the present specimen, and its bluish 

 upper tail-coverts, lead me to this conclusion. Without a careful 

 examination of a good series of specimens, of both sexes, in various 

 stages of plumage from the young to the adult, the matter must 

 remain an open question, as the present bird shows characters 

 already recorded, noticeable in both Poephila gouldice and P. mira- 

 bilis. If, however, Mr. Gould be correct in separating them, then, 

 as I re marked before, we have a third species intermediate between 

 them, and which may be described as follows : — Plumage same as in 

 Poephila gouldice (Gould), but having the black of the throat and 

 face extending conspicuously beyond and round the eye, and over 

 the whole of the earcoverts, bounded by a narrow line of blue appar- 

 ently all round* ; across the chest a band of buff-tinted feathers 

 margined with rosy lilac or light lilac-purple, which almost obscures 

 the buffy tinge ; under tail-coverts white ; upper tail-coverts 

 greenish blue, the outer series blue : tail black, the centre two 



* Skin mutilated behind the ear-coverts ; the blue line plainly visible on the 

 crown of the head, behind the eye, and on the throat. 



