204 DEGEN, New Species of Australian Magpies. [ 2n f April 



ively warrantable procedure on the grounds upon which Mr. 

 Milligan constructs its type. And by attempting to supplement 

 analogies on hand of a larger stock of material of Mr. Campbell's 

 Western Australian species, G. dorsalis, by referring to the tail- 

 band of the latter, he shakes the very foundations upon which 

 he based his own. Why he here comes to the conclusion that 

 its narrowness, or otherwise, is simply a matter of age, evidence 

 of which he quotes of two fully adult, and another one 

 equally so but with insufficiently mature plumage, in which 

 the tail-band is larger, and still more so in three other decidedly 

 young birds, is not quite comprehensible. 



I have myself never entertained any other opinion on this 

 point, and have given ample reasons in some other place for 

 my views on the acquisition of the fully-matured garb — viz., 

 a progressive development by means of a series of moults. And 

 this is the very reason why Mr. Milligan does not seem to be 

 able to agree with Mr. Campbell about the " mottled " condition 

 of the wing edges in the latter's G. dorsalis, he finding these of 

 a pure white in his own skins of G. dorsalis. 



As pointed out by Mr. Robert Hall, and since acknowledged 

 by the author himself, Mr. Campbell's typical female bird is not 

 a fully adult specimen, an opinion to which I gave expression 

 then, when I had the privilege of handling the specimen. 



Mr. Milligan's remarks on the colouring of the stems of the 

 feathers to which he refers as a " noteworthy feature " in 

 these Western birds, is debatable too, as this distribution applies 

 to the shafts the same as it does to the barbs, it being merely 

 a matter of development, and subject to age, and is in no way 

 exceptional from the other species. A specimen of G. leuconota 

 in my possession sufficiently shows this to be the case, where 

 the conditions are similar as those mentioned for G. longirostris. 

 Without wishing to impair in the slightest the admissibility of 

 this Western form of bird, described by Mr. Milligan, as a distinct 

 species, any more than he does it himself in regard to Mr. Camp- 

 bell's G. dorsalis, no serious harm is done by recommending the 

 utmost caution in a genus in which the effect of hybridization 

 or albinism cannot easily be traced, blending, as it must do of 

 necessity, with no other colours than black and white, of which 

 latter the question will remain a study for a long time to come. 

 For instance, on very little better grounds, except for its smaller 

 dimensions, G. hyperleuca, confined to Teismania, has so far 

 found grace to be considered as a species, although to this day 

 it has not. freed itself entirely from the suspicion of a " race only." 

 And with this we find ourselves involuntarily drawn towards 

 that tricky ground, their geographical distribution. G. longi- 

 rostris, so far as ascertained by Mr. Milligan's present material, 

 is recorded from the north-western territories of Western Aus- 

 tralia, the districts adjacent to the Ashburton River. It has a 

 decided flavour of G. tibicen for its colour distribution in both 

 the adults and the young of the two sexes. On the other hand, 



