252 ASHBY, The Dusky Miner. [Tll'Sii 



as the Richmond. I therefore accept these. In the north, alberti 

 has been frecjuently recorded around Tambourine Mountain, and 

 its usual habitat is spoken of nowadays as the MacPherson 

 Range, but how far west each ranges I am not prepared to say. 

 Tf alberti is a Richmond River and Logan River bird, and novce- 

 hollandia a Clarence River species, they should extend as indi- 

 cated on the map, and a glance at this will show best what is 

 meant. T will dehnitely vouch for the range of cdtvardi as shown 

 in it. Further, cdzcardi certainly meets a Clarence River bird 

 in the region of the Taloom Scrub and Range, and the s^veep ui> 

 north into Queensland to enter once more the western w-itershed 

 is by way of this remnant of what was once the "Big Scrub" of 

 the Clarence. But whether it extends over the Main Range into 

 the MacPherson, I am not prepared to say, though it should do 

 as the Taloom Scrub runs up into the region of Mt. Lindsay. 

 Apparently then, M. novce-hollandi<r edwardi would seem to be a 

 highland and western race of the lowland Clarence bird, irrupting 

 into Queensland and the western watershed at two points, mak- 

 ing direct contact with novcc-hoUandicc in the region of the 

 Taloom Range via the granite bastions to the east of Tenterfield, 

 referred to earlier, and with alberti in the region of the junction 

 of the Main Range and the McPherson Range east of Killarney. 



My thanks are due to Mr. James Henderson for the map and 

 photographs, to Mr. Douglas Eden for the drawings, and to Mr. 

 W. ^feharg for placing his bushcraft at my disposal in all 

 wealhers and at all times. 



The Dusky Miner (Myzantha obscuraj, Gould, 



with its sub-species, compared with the Yellow-throated 

 Miner {Myzantha flavigula), Gould. 



P,y KDWIX .\.SMP,V, F.L.S., M.B.O.U., "W'ittunga," Black- 

 wood, South Australia. 



I lia\c always been dissatisfied with (iregory M. Mathews' 

 treatment of Myzantha obscnra, treating it, as he does, as a sub- 

 species or geograj)hical race of Myzantha flaviijula, Gould. 



In November of last year, I collected si)ecimens of what were 

 supposed to be typical M. obscnra at Moora, about l.'^O miles 

 north-east of Perth, in Western Australia. In my article in The 

 Emu, XX., p. 136, attention was called to the dissimilarity of 

 these birds to an example of M. obscnra I had collected near 

 Perth in August, 190L 



Later on, Mr. C. E. Orton was good enough to send me speci- 

 mens which he had taken at different seasons of the year, and 

 from which I was able to make fair skins. These investigations 

 satisfied me that M. obscnra deserved full specific rank, and 

 really was not a sub-species of M. flaviiiula* 



* The Check List Committee at the Svdney Session of the R.A.O.U. 

 separated these birds as two species— Eds. 



