212 MUSCICAPID.E. 



/T^HE Turquoisine Superb \\'arl>ler chiefly inhabits the inland portions of the continent. 

 J~ It is found in South Australia, where the type was obtained. Central Australia, western 

 New South Wales, and the south-western portion of Queensland. It is represented in the 

 Australian Museum collection by adult males obtained to the north-west of Port Augusta, 

 and from various other localities in South Australia; by specimens procured by Mr. James 

 Ramsay at Tyndarie, New- South Wales; and by a mutilated skin of an adult male from 

 Deering Creek, Central Australia. This series has been supplemented by five males kindly 

 lent by the Trustees of the South Australian Museum. Adelaide. Two old males, collected 

 at Port Germein by Mr. M. Murray, are in beautiful plumage, and have the head, mantle, 

 upper portion of the back, and upper tail-coverts of a very rich turquoise-blue; the quills 

 are more strongly washed with greenish-blue, and the margins of the upper wing-coverts 

 with a more decided tinge of blue, and are equally rich in colour as the Central Australian 

 examples. Another male, from the same locality, collected by Dr. A. M. Morgan, in October, 

 1896, has the mantle more circumscribed, and the blues of the upper and under parts of a 

 slightly paler shade. Mr. C. W. De \'is, has also sent me for examination an adult male from 

 Queensland, but from what locality it was procured is not known. 



Mr. G. A. Heartland has recently forwarded to me, for examination, a very old male 

 obtained in Central Australia. It is one of the most beautiful specimens I have seen, and in 

 addition to its darker and more richly coloured tints of plumage, has the velvety-black 

 crescentic band on the fore-neck very broad. The specimens from Port Germein and Central 

 Australia are darker in colour than examples obtained in other parts of the continent, and are 

 very unlike Gould's figure of this species in his "Supplement to the Birds of Australia." " The 

 latter more closely resembles in colour the not (juite adult male which may be distmguished by 

 the paler silvery turquoise-blue shade of the head, mantle, and ear-coverts. In the "Zoology 

 of the Horn Expedition," I erroneously attributed these richer-plumaged birds from Central 

 Australia to Maliinis inelanotiis. I feel certain, too, that the birds observed by the late Mr. 

 K. H. Bennett, near the Barrier Range, South .\ustralia, and regarded by him as M. splcndeits 

 were M. caUaiims. 



In no species of the genus does the colour in the adult males vary so much with age as in 

 the Turquoisine Superb Warbler; the older they are the darker in colour they become in the 

 shades of blue in those parts of the upper and under surface, and the wings are more strongly 

 washed with greenish-blue. This variation is more apparent in the cobalt-blue colour of the 

 under parts. In five adult males now before me, there are not two specimens with the breast 

 and abdomen of the same shade of cobalt. The deep cobalt throat in adult males, in contrast to 

 the remainder of the under surface, which is light cobalt-blue, will however serve to distinguish 

 this species from any other of the blue-breasted species belonging to this genus. 



Regarding this species, Mr. Keartland writes me: — "Across Central Australia, from about 

 fifty miles north of Charlotte Waters to some distance north of Alice Springs, Malurus callaimis 

 is found freely dispersed through scrub and salt-bush, but more especially along the creeks at 

 Hermannburg and lllamurta. Mr. C. V.. Cowle informs me that at times the three species, 

 M. assimilis, M. callainus, and M. Icttcoptcrus, arrive in such numbers that they are disturbed from 

 almost every bush along the gorges in the ranges near his quarters, but when protracted hot 

 weather prevails they all disappear and are not seen again until rain falls. The genus is a very 

 sociable one, and two or more species are often seen on the same bush. In fact on several 

 occasions I have killed two species at one shot. M. callainus is, as a rule, more partial to the 

 vicinity of water than most other representatives of the genus I have met with. These birds 

 generally moult during June and July, and are in perfect plumage irj August and September." 



• Bds. Austr., fol., Suppl., pi. 23 (1869). 



