ART. 16. BIRDS FROM NORTH CELEBES RILEY. 35 



Three skins marked as males, one female and four unsexed speci- 

 mens (which from the absence of the swelling on the foreheads I 

 take to be females) before me from Australia have the edges of the 

 feathers of the back and breast lighter and the throats more exten- 

 sively whitish than in Celebes birds. Mathews ''^ has named this race 

 Netlion castaneum rogersi^ but does not point out in the original 

 description how it differs from N. g. gibherijrons ; later under Virago 

 gibherifrons rogersi^'^ he concludes the Australian birds are larger 

 and this seems to be borne out by the above series. It is possible 

 that the majority of our Australian specimens are really females of 

 N. castanewin^ but the bird marked as a female (No. 85928) is quite 

 a little smaller than the others and is probably N . gibherifrons. She 

 is larger than any female I have measured from Celebes and the 

 buffy margins of the feathers above and below are much lighter; 

 as this agrees with Mathews conclusions it is wiser to recognize the 

 Australian race for the present at least. 



A fine male specimen (No. 278783) of N. castaneurri from Port 

 Lincoln, South Australia, before me shows a great reduction in the 

 size of the swelling on the forehead, so pronounced in N . gibheri- 

 jrons^ causing the head to appear of quite a different shape. In 

 the old males of TV. gibberifrons^ where the above character is best 

 developed, the forehead rises almost vertically while in N. castaneum 

 it slopes gradually back to the crown. In my opinion both the above 

 species belong to the same genus, and lacking any other good char- 

 acters to separate them from Nettion, it would appear that the 

 genus Virago is not well-founded. 



Five young in the down taken at Gimpoe, with the adult female, 

 August 4, may be described as follows: Above fuscous-black with 

 a brownish wash, darker on the head; two narrow white lines 

 (one on each side) from near posterior base of wing to sides of 

 rump; a superciliary streak extending from lores to auriculars, 

 chamois; a streak from forehead through eye to nape and an incom- 

 plete " rictal " stripe that does not quite reach the rictus are the color 

 of the back; a spot on the outer border of wing and a stripe across 

 middle of wing to back, buffy white; lower-parts, buffy-white, the 

 chest crossed by a narrow seal brown band, shading below into a 

 slightly wider band of a much lighter brown. 



Ten adult males measure: Wing, 179-192.5 (187.2); tail, 84-94 

 (88.3) ; culmen, 34.5-40 (37.6) ; tarsus, 32.5-35.5 (33.9) ; middle-toe, 

 38.5-43.5 (42); and 10 adult females; wing, 170-183 (176.8); tail^ 

 79.5-90 (80.2) ; culmen, 32.5-38 (34.5) ; tarsus, 31-34.5 (32.5) ; mid- 

 dle-toe, 37.5-i2 (39). From the above it will be seen the female is 



o« Aus. Av. Record, vol. 1. 1912, p. 86. 



" Birds Australia, vol. 4, pt. 2, 1915, p. 102. 



