EMBLEMA. 273 



Emblema picta. 



PAINTED FINCH. 

 Emblema picta, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1842, p. 17; id., Bds. Austr., fol. Vol. III., pi. 97 (1848); 

 id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., p. 429 (1865); Sliarpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. XIII., 

 p. 295 (1890); North, Rep. Horn Sci. E.^ped., Part II., Zool, p. 88 (1896); id., Rec. Austr. 

 Mus., Vol. III., p. 14 (1897); id., Vic. Nat., Vol. XVII., p. 187 (1901). 

 Adult male — General colour above pale brown, of a slightly richer shade 07i the back; upper 

 wing-coverts pale brown, the quills darker and narroivly edged externally with pale brown; tail feathers 

 dusky-broimi ; rump and upper tail-coverts scarlet; lores, forehead, fore part of cheeks, chin, and upper 

 throat scarlet ; foreneck, breast and abdomen black spotted with white al the sides, the foreneck and 

 breast loith an irregular streak of scarlet feathers down the centre; binder tail-coverts black. Total 

 length 1^-2 inches, wing 2;3, tail 1-5, bill OS, tarsus 0-/J. 



Adult female — Differs from the adult male in having only the lores, the feathers above the eye 

 and at the base of the loiver mandible scarlet; the under parts are of a duller black and more largely 

 spotted with white; chin black: throat and foreneck black spotted with white, and on the centre of the 

 breast only a few scarlet feathers. 



Distribution— Western .Australia, North-western .Vustralia, Northern Territory of South 

 Australia, Central Australia, Northern Queensland, New South Wales, 



ZtFV OULD described the type of this species in 1842 from a single specimen obtained by the 

 V_X late Mr. Bynoe on the north-western coast of Australia. According to Dr. A. G. 

 Butler,-^ Herr Wiener records purchasing a pair of living Painted Finches in Europe in 1869, 

 and another pair at Liverpool in 1873. In November 1886, Dr. E. P. Ramsay exhibited a 

 number of skins of this species at a meeting of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, 

 collected by Mr. E. J. Cairn about one hundred miles inland from Derby, In 1890 Dr. 

 R. B. Sharpe records t five specimens collected by Mr. F. Gibson in the interior of Northern 

 Australia, and an adult female from Champion Bay, Western Australia. The members of the 

 Horn Scientific E.xpedition in 1894 obtained specimens at McMinn's Range, Bagot's Spring, 

 and Mereenie Bluflf in Central Australia. Later on in 1896 while Mr. G. A. Keartland was a 

 member of the Calvert Exploring Expedition in 1896-7, he again met with this species and 

 procured four adult males and one female at Johanna Springs in North-western Australia. On 

 the 23rd of September, 1896, Mr. A. M. N. Rose presented three adult male specimens in the 

 flesh to the Trustees of the Australian Museum. These birds were procured the previous day by 

 his nephew, Mr. Arthur Payten, at Campbelltown, thirty-four miles south-west of Sydney. They 

 were shot from a flock of five while searching for grass seeds on a hill devoid of any cover, and 

 during a period of excessive drought inland. Roughly estimated the nearest recorded locality 

 in which these birds had been previously obtained was in Central Australia, thirteen hundred 

 miles west of Campbelltown. In 1901 Dr. W. Macgillivray forwarded me, among others, 

 a skin of this species for examination. It was obtained by his brother the late Mr. A. S. 

 Macgillivray, at Leilavale Station, on the FuUarton River, near Cloncurry, in the Burke District 

 of Northern Queensland. ] 



An adult male in the Australian Museum collection has a few scattered scarlet feathers on 

 the lower throat and forming with those on the centre of the foreneck and breast an irregular 

 scarlet line down the centre of the under surface. .As I have pointed out elsewhere, j two specimens 

 marked females by Mr. G. A. Keartland are indistinguishable in plumage from adult males, but 

 the sexes of the specimens obtained by Mr. E. J. Cairn vary as described above. 



• Foreign Finches, p. 153, (1894-6). J North, Vict. Nat., Vol. XVII., p. 187 (1901). 



t Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. XIII. § Rep. Horn Sci. Exped. Centr. Austr.. Zooi.. p. 88 (1896). 



