c;2 MiLLIGAN, Some W. Australian and Allied Species. \ ^T 



^ ' /^ L ist Oct. 



press accompanying it, I should not be surprised if it were 

 hereafter found that the Yule River birds were nothing more or 

 less than a southern race of P. fiavcsccns. 



MalURUS LEUCOPTERUS (Quoy and Gaim.) and M. LEUCONOTUS 

 (Gould). 

 In a collection of skins made in tlie Murchison district, the 

 collector drew my attention to the fact that the conspicuously 

 white wing-patch of two of the male skins sent not only extended 

 to but encroached on the back, but without encompassing it to 

 the extent existing in M. leuconotus . In one of the males shot 

 during the Wongan Hills trip I observed a similar condition of 

 things. As the ranges of the two species are to a great extent 

 identical, the above forms would appear to be intermediate ones 

 between the two species. Mr. A. J. Campbell states (" Nests 

 and Eggs of Australian Birds," pp. 174, 175) that M. leuconotus 

 was obtained by Mr. Tom Carter at Point Cloates, North-Western 

 Australia, where he shot one after a hurricane. Mr. Carter, in 

 his " Notes on the Birds Occurring in the Region of the North- 

 West Cape," does not refer to the species, but mentions M . leu- 

 coptcrus, adding that that species was abundant after the hurricane 

 of li 



Some Bird'Life in British Papua. 



By R. A. Vivian, Melbourne. 



What British Papua lacks in big game it contrives to till the 

 bill with fowls of the air, which, though varied and numerous, 

 do not exist in that enormous quantity one would be led to 

 expect of a fertile country lying only a few hundred miles south 

 of the equator. 



No classification of a technical nature, but a brief description 

 of the different species and their habits, where known, being 

 the object of this paper, further remarks will be unnecessary in 

 introducing to the reader the typical birds of Papua, or New 

 Guinea — viz., the Birds of Paradise, principally Paradisca rag- 

 giana. Our Teutonic neighbours evidently admire the birds so 

 much that they have given them the premier position by striking 

 local coinage on the obverse side with a somewhat exaggerated 

 design of the Greater Bird of Paradise {P. apodd). 



The exquisite plumage of these birds having been already 

 treated to a presumably microscopical survey, it is scarcely 

 necessary to dwell further in that respect, but rather on their 

 apparent desire to be noisy. Their rapidly ascending, shrill 

 " caw-caw-caw," repeato, penetrating the ordinary stillness of the 

 forest, being akin to a clarion call, awhile on a tree limb their 

 prancing, which the natives introduce and imitate in their dances, 

 is very ludicrous. Moulting seems to take place about August, 

 which is near the end of the dry (or south-west) season. The 



