©fficial Organ of the JUstvalaesian Ornithologists' Enion. 



Birds of & fe&tber.' 



Vol. III.] 2ND APRIL, 1904. [Part 4. 



Remarks on New Species of Australian Magpies, G. 

 longirostris, Milligan, and G. dorsalis, Campbell, 

 with Reflections on the Revision of the Genus 

 Gymnorhinae, Hall. 



By Ed. Degen, Parsons' Green, London, S.W. 



Perhaps I should not at present have troubled ornithologists with 

 anything from my side concerning these noble and most remark- 

 able birds had it not been that an article appeared in the October 

 number of The Emu, by Mr. A. W. Milligan, giving a description 

 of what is claimed by him as a new species, hailing from Western 

 Australia. In times gone by I had the rare privilege of personal 

 acquaintance with the types of G. dorsalis, and retain the liveliest 

 interest in everything bearing upon the life-history of so-called 

 Magpies generally — birds so representative of the avifauna of 

 the Australian bush. 



By making the principal features laid down by Mr. Milligan 

 for the diagnosis of the new species the subject of a closer scrutiny, 

 one of the first and most important points is the remarkable 

 coincidence in the longer bill claimed for the two Western Aus- 

 tralian forms by both authors as distinguishing G. longirostris 

 from G. tibicen in the one case, and G. dorsalis in the other, from 

 the rest of the previously known standard forms of Gymnorhince. 



The length of the bill of Mr. Milligan's G. longirostris, as 

 measured along the culmen, is stated to range from 2.5 to 

 2.1 inches, in diminishing scale. Mr. Campbell's figures are for 

 a male bird 2.3, and to within near 2.2 for a female. The 

 measurements, therefore, for both these species, though slightly 

 higher, by being absolute — that is, for 3 birds, 2 longirostris and 

 1 dorsalis — than either leuconota or tibicen (leaving hyperleuca, 

 as a smaller race, out of consideration here), the remaining 

 specimens of the so-called " long-billed " show no excess in length 

 for the beak over some of G. tibicen, for which species 2.2 inches 

 have been recorded. At the same time it should be admitted that 

 the inferior measurements recorded by Mr. Milligan represent 

 those of young individuals. 



Like Mr. Milligan, I have no series of G. leuconota at my disposal 



