THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 57 



Under side with the reddish-grey replaced by sahiion colour, 

 and the silver spots of hind-wing (usually six in number) of 

 moderate size, that of apex being equal in size to that of anal 

 angle. Cilia yellowish, spotted with brown. 



Locality — Corao and Blue Mountains, N.S.W. (F. Brown). 

 Type in author's collection. 



The colour of the under side readily distinguishes this variety. 

 I was at first inclined rather to think it a hybrid of iacohus and 

 maheta, but now that several males have been taken in two 

 localities it is best regarded as a marked variety. 



The Black "Emeu." — Mr. Graham Renshaw, M.B., who has 

 on several occasions contributed articles to the Zoologist on rare 

 animals, &c., which are known only as museum specimens, devotes 

 the latest of his essays, in the March (1903) number, to Dromceus 

 ater, the extinct emu of Kangaroo Island. Mr. Renshaw, after 

 diligent search, can record only six specimens, but the where- 

 abouts of th^ee of these is at present unknown. He figures the 

 only stuffed specimen known, that in the Jardin des Plantes 

 Museum, Paris. It will be remembered that an account of the 

 finding in the Florence (Italy) Museum of a skeleton of this bird 

 appeared in the Victorian Naturalist (vol. xvii., p. 114) some 

 time ago, and gave rise to the query (Naturalist, vol. xvii., p. 128) 

 as to whether any remains of the extinct Tasmanian Emu survive 

 in museums, so far with no response. Mr. Renshaw regards 

 Dromceus ater as one of the rarest of the rare birds, but expresses 

 no opinion as to whether it and the Tasmanian are distinct or 

 identical species. This is a point which seems to require clearing 

 up, for, if the same, it is rather singular that the same bird should 

 exist on two islands at least 500 miles apart with no trace of the 

 species, or of a connecting link, on the mainland of Australia, from 

 which the islands are separated, in the case of Kangaroo Island 

 by a strait of only 10 miles across, and Tasmania of 135 miles. 

 Dr. Latham, the eminent ornithologist, in his " General History 

 of Birds," published in 1822, mentions having seen a pair of 

 " Van Dieman's Cassowary," one of which he figures under the 

 specific name of D. ater, but as these are now among the missing 

 specimens, it seems impossible to be certain as to the identity of 

 the Emus of the two islands. 



The Daisy. — Mr. R. L. Praeger writes in Knowledge for 

 July on wild flowers of the most familiar and best-loved kinds, 

 among them the Daisy, of which he says : — " The yellow button- 

 like disk is composed of a myriad of small perfect flowers, with 

 yellow five-cleft tubular corolla, and ring of fused stamens 

 surrounding the pistil. Of calyx we find hardly a trace ; the close 

 packing of the flowers leaves no room for it, and renders it un- 

 necessary as a protective structure. In the Compositae the calyx is 



