242



Correspondence.



take place o?i Thursday, July 6 lh, at 4 p.m. in one of the large rooms

in the Refreshment Department , where the Council will receive

members from 4 to 4.30, and where afternoon tea will be served.


Since it is necessary to know beforehand the numbers

likely to be present, members are requested to fill in the post

card issued with each copy of this number of the Magazine and

to post it, as soon as possible, as addressed.


R. I. Pocock.



CORRESPONDENCE, NOTES, ETC.



HECK’S LONG-TAILED GRASSFINCH.


Sir,—I n the last number of the Avicultural Magazine , Mr. Mathews

appears to doubt the validity of Poephila hecki, Heinroth, and proposes

that the name shall be regarded as a synonym of P. acuticaucia.


There is however no doubt in my mind, and I think other aviculturists

will agree with me, that there are two distinct forms of the Long-tailed

Grassfinch, one with waxy yellow bill and the other, slightly smaller, with

bright orange-red bill. There was a large importation of the lat f er form in

1902 or thereabouts, and I think some had come over earlier than this,

while those that have arrived in this country since have mostly, if not all,

been of the typical yellow-billed form.


The difference in the two forms was first noticed by Dr. Heinroth of

Berlin (Otnith. Monatsb , Jahr. VIII., p. 22, 1900.), and he described the red¬

billed form as Poephila hecki. Later Mr. North noticed the same difference

in Sydney, and not knowing that Heinroth had already described this form,

named it P. aurautiirostris (Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., XXVII., p. 207. 1902);

while about the same time several of us in this country noticed how these

birds differed.


I have before me skins of both P. acuticauda and P. hecki , and although

the red bills of the latter have considerably faded, the difference in the two

forms is readily seen.


I maintain that after the testimony of two such good observers as

Heinroth and North, who examined the living birds, Mr. Mathews should

not sweep their opinions aside on the strength of there being no difference

in the dried skins when the point of difference is the colour of the bill,

which is known to fade after death. D. Seth-SmiTH.



RIFLE BIRD NESTING IN CONFINEMENT.


It will interest our readers to hear that a Rifle Bird ( Ptilorhis inag-

nifica), belonging to Mr. E. J. Brook, has laid in confinement. Mr. Brook

writes to us as follows:—“My hen Rifle Bird (New Guinea) laid an egg



