140 From Magazines, Src. I 



Emu 

 7th Jan. 



EuLACESTOMA NIGROPECTUS. — This bird, tirst obtained by 

 Captain Armit and Mr. Guise during an expedition up Mount 

 Maneao, in February, 1895 (virtually what was then called, 

 owing to the enterprise of some Melbourne newspaper proprietors. 

 The Argus expedition), has a coloured plate by Keulemans 

 devoted to it in the July number of The Ibis. Dr. Sclater 

 says that the description given in the article is " fairly accurate " 

 of the male of the pair which now figure in the Tring Museum. 

 The specimens figured were obtained by Mr. A. S. Meek on the 

 Aroa River, British New Guinea, on 31/5/03. Other specimens 

 had been recorded. As the Australian Shrike-Tit, according to 

 Dr. Bowdler Sharpe, of the British Museum, belongs to the 

 "sub-family Pachycephalinae of the family Laniidae, that bird, 

 which is arranged by Dr. Sharpe in the same sub-family, is 

 probably one of its nearest allies." 



Winter Whitening of Plumage or Fur. — Whilst naturalists 

 are agreed as to the protection afforded by a white covering — 

 colouration, as some people incorrectly have it — of birds and 

 animals in the winter, it has remained for Captain G. E. H. 

 Barrett-Hamilton (Proc. Roy. Irish Acad., xxiv., 1903, pp. 313, 

 314), to suggest how large a part fat may play in alteration of 

 pigment cells. To use the words of The Ibis, he " considers 

 that the temporary cessation of metabolism of fat and absence 

 of pigment may be parts of the same process ; whilst animals 

 are, as a rule, lightest in colour where the accumulation of fat 

 is greatest." The theory is rather a startling one, and is worth 

 further study. There is much to be said for and against it — 

 against seems to preponderate, more particularly when one 

 remembers that according to some highly accredited scientists 

 the feather cells after full development are really dead. 



The Ibis. — The July number (8th series, vol. iv.. No. 15) 

 opens with an admirable coloured plate by J. G. Keulemans of 

 some birds from Cape Colony. In the article which accompanies 

 this Dr. R. Bowdler Sharpe, LL.D., &c., continues his description 

 of birds from Deelfontein, Cape Colony, and so far has described 

 123 species. Some valuable observations, supported by statis- 

 tics, as to the " Decrease in the Weight of Eggs as Incubation 

 Advances " are contributed by Mr. Hugh S. Gladstone, M.A., 

 F.Z.S., &c. x\mongst the miscellaneous matter in the volume 

 is mentioned the fact that Dr. Finsch, who has done valuable 

 ornithological work, has resigned his appointment at the Leyden 

 Museum, to take charge of the ethnographical branch of the 

 Museum of Brunswick. Signer T. Salvadori, in this issue, 

 questions the nomenclature of Messrs. Hartert and Rothschild 

 of a bird from New Guinea which they called Eafci maculata. 

 His impression is that it belongs to the Dica?idae. 



