72 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



perhaps hardly distinct, but the specimen is not in very good 

 condition, and I am unable to decide definitely upon it. It is at 

 any rate a new species, and a most interesting addition to the 

 AustraHan avifauna." 



Before describing the genus Eremiornis I carefully compared 

 the specimen on which it is founded with the characters given 

 in the " Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum," vol. 

 vii. (1883) of the genus Schoenicola and its allies, and concluded 

 that it varied from all of them. Since then the Trustees of 

 the Australian Museum have received two specimens of 

 Schcenicola platyura from the Director of the Travandrum 

 Museum, India, and the species upon which Jerdon founded 

 the genus. These specimens strengthen me in my opinion 

 that although Schoenicola and Eremiornis bear a close resem- 

 blance to each other, especially in the broad tail-feathers and 

 the long upper and under tail coverts, they are quite distinct. 

 In Schcenicola the bill is deeper and more curved at the tip, the 

 rictal bristles stout, the primaries distinctly longer than the 

 secondaries, the tail barely exceeding the length of the wing, the 

 tarsi and feet long, the mid-toe when extended reaching beyond 

 the ends of the longest under tail coverts. In Eremiornis the 

 bill is straighter, the rictal bristles feeble and hardly visible, the 

 wing more rounded and distinctly shorter than the tail, the tarsi 

 short and feet small, the mid-toe reaching when extended about 

 half-way down the longest under tail coverts. What I regard as 

 constituting the chief point of distinction between the two genera 

 is, that in Schoenicola the tarsi and feet are long and strong as in 

 Acrocephalus and other Reed-Warblers, while Eremiornis has the 

 tarsi short and the feet comparatively small, the tarsus only 

 equalling in length that of Smicrornis Jlavesceois, the smallest 

 species of Australian birds. For the purpose of comparison the 

 measurements of adult specimens of Schcenicola platyura and 

 Eremiornis carteri are given below : — 



Sex. Total length. Wing. Tail. Bill. Tarsus. 



Schcenicola platyttra - Adult male 6.1 inches 2.6 2.8 0.46 0.8 

 Eremiornis carteri - Adult male 5.7 inches 2.05 2.7 0.46 0.55 



An accompanying photograph is exhibited here this evening 

 of skins of the two birds of the natural size. 



NOTES ON THE WHITE IBIS. 

 By Frank Madden, M.P. 



(Communicated by G. A. Keartland.) 

 {Read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 14th Jnly, 1902.) 

 The ancient Egyptians were an eminently practical people, 

 knowing their friends and their enemies, and dealing manfully 



