THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 101 



number of plants, wherein the pollen is in form of dust, flower 

 before coming into leaf. Were these plants to begin to blossom 

 after the complete development of their extensive foliage the 

 wind transport of the pollen would be rendered almost impossible. 

 The pollen would be inevitably deposited upon these obstacles 

 and stranded. 



Regarding the stigmas, we find that in plants with dusty pollen 

 they are invariably fashioned so as to catch the dust. In one 

 case they are fleshy and swollen and have the surfaces which are 

 exposed to the wind covered with a velvety coating ; in another 

 they are in the form of tufts of long papillose or capillary fila- 

 ments. At the time when pollination takes place they are al- 

 ways fully exposed to the wind, and so placed that when the 

 pollen cells are blown against them they are caught like midges 

 in a spider's web. Yet, in spite of all these contrivances, it 

 would remain very doubtful whether the stigmas would be dusted 

 with pollen through the action of wind were it not for the 

 concurrence of another circumstance. Supposing that only two 

 thousand pollen cells are produced in an inflorescence, it would 

 be only by a lucky chance that a single one of these cells would 

 be caught by the stigmas of a plant at the distance of a few feet, 

 but the number of cells constituting the pollen dust amounts 

 to millions. 



In years peculiarly favourable to the flowering of conifers, 

 vast clouds of pollen are borne on gentle winds, and in the 

 event of a thunderstorm pollen may be washed off the plants 

 and run together by the water on the soil, leaving behind patches 

 of a jellovv powder, a phenomenon which has given cause for the 

 statement that a fall of sulphurous rain has taken place. 



ON THREE APPARENTLY UNDESCRIBED SPECIES 



OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



By Alfred J. North, C AI.Z.S., Ornithologist, Australian 



Museum, Sydney. 



Rhipidura intermedia, sp. nov. 



Adult male. — Like the adult male of Rhipidura rufifrons, 

 Lath., but distinguished from that species by the less extent of 

 orange-rufous on the basal half of the tail feathers, the terminal 

 half being blackish-brown, and distinctly tipped with white ; by 

 the narrower black band on the lower throat, the less scale-like 

 appearance of the feathers on the fore-neck, and the centre of the 

 breast and abdomen being white, the latter washed on the sides 

 with pale fawn-buff; sides of the breast ashy brown ; under tail 

 coverts pale fawn colour. Total length, 5.9 inches; wing, 2.9; 

 tail, 3.3 ; bill, 0.32 ; tarsus, 0.7. 



Hah. — Scrubs of the Bellenden-Ker and Seaview Ranges, 

 North-Eastern Queensland. 



