130 



MELIPHAGID.E. 



Mr. G. A. Keartland sent me for examination skins, nests, and eggs of this species, together 

 with the following notes: — "During the stay of the Calvert Exploring Expedition in North- 

 western Australia, Ptilotisflavcsccns was found in great numbers along the course of the Fitzroy 

 and Margaret Rivers, and was never met with far from water. They were often seen drinking, 

 bathing, and preening their feathers. Their note is a squeaking chirp, very similar to one uttered 

 by Ptilotis p.'uicillata, but unlike that species they are very sociable, assembling in flocks on the 

 sides of pools or water troughs, from twenty to forty or more in number. When disturbed they 

 scatter in all directions, each taking its own course. The sexes are alike in plumage and can 

 only be distinguished by dissection. They were just building their nests when we left the district 

 in March 1897. The skins forwarded — an adult male and female — I obtained on the 6th 

 January, and the nests and eggs were taken in the same locality during ?ilarch 1899." 



\oung birds have the upper parts paler than in the adults and tinged with an isabelline hue. 

 The sides of the head and throat are of a paler yellow, the patch of yellow plumes below the 

 ear-coverts are paler and smaller, and the streak at the bottom of the latter brown. Wing 27 

 inches. 



In the "Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,"- Dr. H. Gadow places Ptilotis germana 

 as a subspecies of P. flavcscein, and writes: — "Very similar to P.flaveuens, from which it differs 

 in its considerably smaller size and in having the yellow stripe behind the eye and the black 

 stripe beneath the ear-coverts more developed. I refer the two specimens from Port Moresby, 

 .\ew Guinea, collected by Mr. Stone, to this form, which does not deserve specific rank. \'ery 

 likely P. germana, the habitat of which species is the north coast of Australia, and not West 

 Australia, as has sometimes been stated, in order to establish a different geographical range for 

 the two species or races respectively in question. Mr. Gould frequently understood by North- 

 west Australia, the country west of the Cape York Peninsula." 



I have the type of Ptilotis i;i-nnana I now before me, and agree with Dr. Gadow that it is 

 closely allied to P.Jiavcscens, and in addition to the characters pointed out by him, it has the 

 upper parts darker and the under parts more distinctly streaked than in P.flavescem. It is a 

 lapsus calami on the part of Dr. Gadow to state that it dififers from the latter "in its considerably 

 smaller size" for he gives the wing-measurement of P. germana as 3 inches, and that of P. 

 flavescens as 2-(i^ - 275 inches. The latter are undoubtedly females, the specimens he refers to 

 P. germana being males. The wing-measurement of adult m^Xas^oi P. flavescens in the Australian 

 Museum collection varies from 2-6 to 2-8 inches. That of the type of P. germana is 3-07 inches. 

 An apparently young male in the collection from Port Moresby, New Guinea, is indistinguishable 

 from young birds of P. flavescens obtained at Derby, North-western Australia. The precise 

 locality where the type of P. germana was procured is not stated, its habitat in the original 

 description being given as "Torres Straits." Further on in the same volume, Dr. Ramsay 

 referring to P. germana from Port Moresby, remarks: — " I have only seen three specimens of this 

 species, but I believe it is also found in the islands in Torres Straits."! 



Dr. Gadow's statement that " Mr. Gould fre(iuently understood by North-west Australia the 

 country west of the Cape York Peninsula," is undoubtedly an error. Ciould in his original 

 description of P. flavescens gives its habitat as North-west coast of Australia, and in his "Table 

 of Distribution" of .\ustralian Birds in his Handbook,? recognises each of the .\ustralian colonies 

 as then defined. 



* Gadow, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. VIII. p. 246 (1884). 

 t Ramsay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S. Wales, Vol. III., pp. 2, 30, 285 (1879). J Lnc. cit , p. 285 (1879). 

 § Gould, Handbk. Bds. Austr , Vol. II., p, 385 (1S65). 



