212 Notes and Notices. [,sf April 



a list of them for publication in TJie Emu. I took a photograph 

 of the type specimen of Dioviedea cauta, oi especial interest to 

 me. At Washington I remained five days, and went over the 

 fine museums there, and looked over the work done by the 

 Government in connection with insectivorous birds. A list is 

 compiled of the various birds shot in each month of the year, 

 with the contents of their stomachs, tabulated, and, in order that 

 even the kinds of seed may be identified, they keep a sample 

 stock of known seeds of weeds and other plants, so as to help 

 the ornithologists in the identification. I then went to New 

 York, where there is a splendid museum, with very good 

 exhibits. Mr. Frank Chapman has constructed some bird- 

 groups with painted background, which are most realistic and 

 life-like ; but it is difficult to pick out any individual exhibit 

 when there are so many excellent ones. I was privileged to 

 give an lliustrated public lecture at the New York Museum on 

 " Natural History in Australia." Crossing the Atlantic and 

 arriving at Liverpool, I visited the Museum, which is under the 

 care of Dr. H. O. Forbes, where I inspected some of Mr. Robin- 

 son's type specimens of Queensland birds, and noticed that 

 among the skins of Lories, in which blue colour predominated, 

 there was an albino, whereas in Australian Parrots that phase 

 is usually yellow. There was also a mounted skin of a young 

 Emu [Dromceus nov(B-Jiollandi(E), which they thought might be 

 the Droviaus peroni, but it is only the ordinary form. 



In England much time was spent in the bird section of the 

 British Museum, under Dr. Bowdler Sharpe. The mounted 

 groups were perfect in their way. The Emu skins were all 

 examined, including the type of the DroiiuBiis irroratits, but it 

 was only the skin of a young D. novce-Jiollandice, probably about 

 two years old, with the bars well marked, but they would all 

 have disappeared should the bird have become adult. The 

 examination of the two Tasmanian Emu skins {^D. dieinenensis) 

 has been mentioned before.* This museum much needs more 

 skins of Australian birds, especially in moulting phases, but 

 they must have the colour of the soft parts and exact locality 

 and date ; that is what so many of the skins they have at 

 present lack, and it naturally detracts from their usefulness and 

 value. In company with Dr. Bowdler Sharpe and Mr. G. M, 

 Mathews, I visited the Hon. Walter Rothschild's splendid 

 museum at Tring, and was there enabled to examine many 

 skins, such as those of the Albatross, the unique collection of 

 Birds-of- Paradise, and many Australian forms; also the 

 collection of Emu skins, including those from Western Australia, 

 and it was noticed in these latter that the skins that had come 

 from the districts with reddish .soil had the feathers largely 

 stained with that colour. In seeing many Emus alive in various 

 Zoological Gardens, I hardly saw two exactly alike. Some had 



* P. 167. 



