Revision of the gemts Gumnorhina. 



5 



Of many specimens seen by Mr. G. E. Shepherd to shew varia- 

 tion in the district named, one was recorded in the Victorian 

 Naturalist, Vol. XII., p. 68, as a probable new species or a 

 hybrid. Mr. A. J. North^ commented upon it and said, because 

 of the great variation in the width of this band, which in some 

 specimens is reduced to a narrow line of black feathers, the possi- 

 bility of it being a species is precluded, but it may be due to 

 atavism. This latter, however, is not Mr. North's view of the 

 matter, " as no Tasmanian specimen is yet to hand shewing a 

 marked deviation." 



G. TIBICEX. 



Two specimens in the National Museum, Melbourne, have 

 their culmens 1-85 inches in length, while others, described in 

 the Zoologist, June 1900, by Mr. E. Degen, range between 1-8 

 and 2 '25 inches. 



The most important point of interest in the above specimens is 

 in the series of different sized " saddles," ranging from the more 

 ordinary one (3-65 inches in diameter) to the less ordinary one, 

 0"9 inch. Other recorded specimens have their saddles repre- 

 sented by scattered feathers that are not solid enough to form 

 even a narrow solid "saddle." Some of the "saddle" feathers of 

 specimen D are edged with white, which is not uncommon in 

 places at least 1000 miles apart, and which are on the out parts 

 of two of four boundaries (Southern Victoria and Central 

 Australia). 



1 Report of the Horn Exp. Cent. Anst., Zool., p. 70 (1896). 



