ADDITION TO AVIFAUNAS NORTH. 37 



To begin with Tasmania, Dr. L. Holden of Circular Head, 

 informs me that at the latter end of April of this year, he shot in 

 that locality a line adult male Blue-billed Duck, Erismatura 

 australis, Gould, which is now in the Collection of the newly 

 formed Launceston Museum. This is the first time the bird has 

 been recorded from Tasmania, its range being previously limited 

 to New South Wales, Victoria, South and West Australia, over 

 which it is rather sparingly dispersed. 



Through the liberality of the same gentleman, the Trustees of 

 the Australian Museum have just received the skin of a male 

 New Zealatid Shoveller, Spatula variegata, Gould, that was 

 obtained amongst others of the same species by Mr. Thomas Carr, 

 on the 20th of June, 1892, at One Tree Point, on the river Tamar 

 near Launceston ; numerous individuals of which were seen in the 

 neighbourhood during the past winter. This species may be 

 distinguished from the Spatula rhynchotis of Australia and Tas- 

 mania, to which it is closely allied, by being less robust and slightly 

 smaller in its admeasurements ; the feathers of the lower portion 

 of the neck and mantle are white instead of fulvous brown, the 

 short scapulars also have a larger amount of white on them, and 

 the elongated scapulars are plume-like and more conspicuously 

 marked with a broader lanceolate satiny-white stripe. The single 

 male bird received from Mr. Walter Man tell in 1856 upon which 

 Gould founded the species is evidently an exceptional one, if his 

 figure of it in the "Supplement to the Birds of Australia," pi. Ixxx. 

 be correct ; it shows a far larger amount of white upon the lower 

 portion of the neck, mantle, scapulars, and breast than specimens 

 since obtained in New Zealand or the one at present under con- 

 sideration ; the latter being similar in size and slightly brighter in 

 colour to a mounted specimen in the Museum, obtained from the 

 North Island of New Zealand, and approaching nearer to the figure 

 given by Sir Walter Lawry Buller in his Birds of New Zealand, 

 2nd edition. Vol. ii. pi. xliii. p. 269, which he stated has been 

 taken from a "fine male ... in the best condition of plumage." With 

 the specimen sent from Tasmania, a box containing a number of 

 small fresh- water shells was forwarded, marked " taken from the 

 gullet of Spatula variegata" and which I have handed to my 

 colleague Mr. John Brazier for examination, who has determined 

 them to belong to the following species : — Tatea rufilahris, A. 

 Adam, found in Tasmania, South Australia, Victoria, New South 

 Wales, and Queensland ; Bithynella simsoniana, Brazier, and 

 Assimiuea hichicta, Petterd, both peculiar to Tasmania. 



Dr. P. Herbert Metcalfe, the Resident Medical Officer at 

 Norfolk Island has also forwarded to me for identification, the skins 

 of three birds which he obtained on that island during April and 

 May of this year, one a fully adult specimen of the White Heron 

 Herodis egretta, Gmelin (H. syrmatophorus, Gould), which has an 



