20 



THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Gabriel took another, together with a pretty set of the Rose- 

 breasted Robin's, in December last year (1897). 



My son Archie has handed me the following note: — "31st 

 December, 1896. — Observed a pair of Scarlet Robins feeding 

 a fully-fledged Brush Cuckoo, which was perched on the naked 

 branch of a tree near Bayswater. Both male and female robins 

 were tending it. x\fter darling to deposit food in the cuckoo's 

 mouth, the little robins would, alternately, always sit on the 

 branch, a foot or two away, for several seconds, as if seriously 

 contemplating the importance of their charge, before flying oft 

 again." 



Mr. Shepherd has observed on the Mornington Peninsula that 

 the Square-tailed Cuckoo is decidedly rare and shy, and seems 

 partial to secluded spots. In this last respect it resembles the 

 Fantniled Cuckoo. 



List, to date, of the known foster parents of the Square-tailed 

 Cuckoo : — 



Vernacular Name. 



Blue Wren 



White-shafted Fantail 

 Yellovz-faced Honey-eater 

 Brown-backed Honey-eater 



Shrike Tit 



Scarlet-breasted Robin 

 Rose-breasted Robin... 



Scientific Name. 



Malurus cyaneus 

 Rhipidura albiscapa . 

 Ptilotis chrysops 

 (ilycyphila modesta 

 Falcunculus frontatus. 

 Petrceca leggii ... 

 P. rosea 



By Whom First 

 Recorded or 

 Reported. 

 Dr. G. Hurst 

 Hurst — Waterhouse 

 North— Moore 

 D. Le Soucf 

 G. A. Keartland 

 G. E. Shepherd 

 J. Gabriel 



DESCRIPTION OF A NEW AUSTRALIAN LABIATE 



PLANT. 



By J. G. LuEHMANN, F.L.S. 

 Hemigenia Macphersoni, Luehmann (section, Homalochilus). 



A shrub of about 5 feet with glabrous nearly terete branchlets. 

 Leaves mostly in whorls of three, narrow-linear, faintly i-nerved, 

 glabrous, i to 2 inches long, not narrowed at the base, rather 

 acute, flaccid. Flowers axillary, on short pedicels. Bracts very 

 deciduous. Calyx hairy at the base, becoming somewhat scarious 

 in age, 2-lipped, the upper lip about 4 lines long, broadly ovate, 

 3-lobed, the lateral lobes very small, rounded ; lower lip small, 

 2-toothed. Corolla about 3/j^-inch long, orange with purplish veins, 

 or occasionally the whole corolla purplish, slightly hairy outside, 

 inside with rather long hairs at the base of the lower lip and at 

 the insertion of the stamens ; upper lip with two short rounded 

 lobes, lower lip 3-lobed, the lateral lobes deltoid, rounded, the 

 middle lobe broader than long, 2-lobed, and irregularly indented. 

 Stamens : the two upper ones with the sterile end of the connec- 

 tive fringed, the lower ones each with one fertile and one smaller 

 non-pollen bearing anther-cell. Fruit not seen. 



Near Mount Magnet, Western Australia ; VV. S. Macpherson. 



