THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 105 



most of the feathers on the upper surface, giving it a mottled 

 appearance. These distinguishing characteristics are easily dis- 

 cernible when the two forms are compared. In Dr. Ramsay's 

 " Tabular List of Australian Birds " the geographical distribution 

 of this species is recorded as " Port Denison " from specimens 

 in the Australian, Museum collected there by Mr. George 

 Masters in June, 1863, and "Rockingham Bay" from examples in 

 the Dobroyde collection, obtained about ten miles inland from 

 Card well. Since the publication of that work, however, in 1888, 

 our knowledge of the range of this species has been considerably 

 extended, for we have now specimens in the reference collection 

 procured by Clarke in the open country on the western side of 

 the Seaview Range ; by Beveridge at Croydon ; and there is a 

 beautiful group of these birds together with their bower in the 

 National Museum, Melbourne, obtained by Mr. Kendal Broad- 

 bent at Normanton. The latter localities are in the Gulf District, 

 and lie between seven and eight hundred miles in a direct line 

 south east of Port Essington, in the Northern Territory, where 

 Mr. Alexander Morton collected specimens of C. nuchalis for the 

 Trustees of the Australian Museum in 1879. I have never seen 

 any Chlamydoderce from the western shores of the Gulf of Carpen- 

 taria, and it would be interesting to learn where the eastern and 

 north-western races, C. orieutalis and C. nuchalis, meet. 



Regarding this species, Mr. W. S. Day, who has made large 

 collections of north-eastern Queensland birds, and who has 

 travelled through the principal mining districts of North Queens- 

 land, writes me as follows: — "I found ('. orieutalis ^a\r\y common 

 all the way from Charters Towers to Croydon and Normanton, 

 and from the latter locality south and west to Cloncurry and on 

 towards Winton. These birds had a perfect craze for bones. 

 While camped on the Leichardt River I used to shoot a number 

 of pigeons for the pot. When eating them the Bower-lUrds 

 would watch me from the trees, and the moment I threw the 

 bones away the birds would descend on to the ground, pick 

 them up, and carry them away to their bowers. Most of the 

 bowers I examined had a quantity of small bones of mammals 

 heaped up near the entrance, and around them as. a rule a 

 number of shells and a few coloured stones. In one bovver I 

 found a very bright specimen of gold in white quartz, and when 

 in the opal country I used frequently to find pieces of precious 

 opal in and around them. At a bower near a mining camp I 

 found two tin teaspoons, portion of a steel watch chain, a bright 

 sixpence, eleven tin tobacco tags, and a few horse-siioe nails. 

 The miners do not like these birds, as they pilfer any small bright 

 articles lying about the camps to ornament their bowers ; also for 

 the depredations they commit in their gardens, especially among 

 tomatoes." 



