Vol 



°go3^']] Frotn Magazines, &^c. 1 79 



enumerated 64 species, with brief but interesting remarks. No 

 doubt the number would have been greater had the trip not 

 been in winter time — June to August (1889). Moreover, rain 

 and mist were great hindrances to collecting work. The paper 

 is unique from the fact that Mr. Broadbent was the discoverer 

 (either on this excursion or on previous ones to other parts of 

 Queensland) of many of the species named. Mr. Broadbent 

 mentions finding Platycerats elegans (Gm.) at a height of 5,200 

 feet. May the Parrakeet not have been the variety P. e. nigrescens, 

 Ramsay ? 



Mr. Broadbent's list of 79 species originally appeared in a 

 report addressed to the Trustees of the Brisbane Museum, under 

 date 4th October, 1889. The birds enumerated were collected 

 by an expedition under the leadership of Mr. Meston. 



In the Victorian Naticralist, vol. xix., No. 7 (Nov., 1902), Mr. 

 A. J. North, of the Australian Museum, has described three new 

 species of Australian birds, namely : — Rhipidiira inteinnedia — 

 habitat, North-Eastern Queensland ; CalamantJius albiloris — 

 habitat, Victoria; and Aiiiytis inodesta—\-\dih\\.3.t, Central and 

 South Australia and New South Wales. No doubt he has good 

 grounds for separating the species named. 



Sexing Birds. — Without pretending that the rule given is 

 infallible, Mr. W. T, Greene, in a recent number of the 

 Avicultural Maga.zine, puts forward the following as a method 

 of distinguishing the sexes of birds — often a difficult problem : — 

 " If the bird is placed on the left palm, with its head away from 

 the observer, the feathers on the breast will, if the bird is a 

 female, part readily, leaving a bare space, varying in width, with 

 the breast-bone for its centre ; if, on the contrary, the bird is a 

 male, the feathers will not divide in the same even manner, but 

 will be found growing, more or less closely, over the whole 

 surface, even over the edge, or margin, of the breast-bone or 

 keel." Do the observations of Australasian ornithologists bear 

 out this theory ? 



Is Malurus cyaneus Polygamous i* — In the September 

 number of the Avicultural Magazine Mr, Reginald Phillips 

 describes how a pair of these birds bred in his aviary in 

 England. After some descriptive notes, he says : — " This 

 morning (26th July) I was paying a stealthy visit to the food 

 corner of my reserved aviary, and was trying to localize certain 

 baby voices which have become rather pronounced .... 

 when my eye lighted on a long, thin cane, fixed horizontally 

 high up in the aviary, on which was glued, in the sun and quite 



