^°'i9iV'] Correspondence. I3Q 



ences between them and the Museum specimens from Barrow 

 Island, which differences were subsequently confirmed by com- 

 parison with other specimens obtained (from Dirk Hartog). 



Mr. Campbell also states in The Emu for April, 1918 (p. 178) : — 

 " There is no reason why a species on separate islands should 

 change." Perhaps there is no known reason at present, but 

 they certainly do change on islands comparatively close to one 

 another, because, as stated in The Ibis, October, 1917 (p. 593), 

 the Dirk Hartog form of Maliirns assimilis distinctly differs from 

 Maliiriis hernieri (Grant), of Bernier Island, the southern extremity 

 of which is forty-five (45) miles from the northern end of Dirk 

 Hartog. 



As to Mr. A. J. Campbell's original description of M alums 

 edouardi, perhaps he is not aware (or has forgotten) that it was 

 through my agency that he was able to make it, as on 14th 

 February, 1901, when I was paying a visit to Perth from Point 

 Cloates, I was shown in the Perth Museum the skins of this bird, 

 then recently obtained by Mr. J. T. Tunney, and at once recog- 

 nized that they were of great importance ; and, as the late Mr. 

 Bernard H. Woodward was absent at the time, I told the official 

 'to urge strongly upon Mr. Woodward the necessity of having the 

 skins at once described, and advised that they should be sent to 

 competent authorities in the Eastern States for comparison with 

 their larger series of specimens there. I sailed for the North- West 

 a day or two afterwards, without being able to see Mr. Woodward, 

 and by first mail leaving Point Cloates after my return there — 

 viz., on I2th March — I wrote to both Mr. A. J. Campbell and Mr. 

 Woodward respecting the skins. — I remain, &c., 



TOM CARTER. 

 " Wensleydale," Mulgrave-road, Sutton, Surrey, 

 England, 19/6/18. 



[There is no question that Mr. Carter, b}' his enterprise and 

 bushcraft, re-discovered M alums leucoptcms in its original habitat. 

 But if 71/. edouardi be a sub-species of M. leucopterus (Mathews 

 has it so in his " 1913 List," p. 229), then the discovery of 

 M. edouardi was a re-discovery of the species. — Eds.] 



To the Editors of " Tlw Emu." 



Sirs, — May I be allowed to add a slight tribute to those which 

 have already appeared in The Emu to the memory of the late 

 Colonel W. V. Legge. x\t the time when I first arrived in the 

 island from Great Britain, and, having settled in the bush, was 

 striving to attain to some knowledge of our avifauna without any 

 hterature on the subject, the Colonel very kindly sent me one of 

 his few remaining copies of the " Systematic List of Tasmanian 

 Birds," printed in 1886, and, some years later, his " Memorandum 

 Relative to a Vernacular List," printed in 1895. Besides these. 



