146 Review. ' [Jj^^ 



Island, Bass Strait, figured in a coloured plate (No. X.) of The 

 Emu, vol. ii. (1902-3), which species was previously described 

 in The Ibis, p. 10 (i 901). Against the name M. leucopterus 

 (White-winged Wren) the author has placed a query, and states : — 

 " The accompanying remarks apply to the birds figured and 

 described by Gould in his folio edition of ' The Birds of Australia,' 

 vol. iii., part 25. With that writer, however, I agree in ques- 

 tioning very much the propriety of referring them to the Malurus 

 leucopterus of Quoy and Gaimard." Would it have not been well 

 to refer to the specimens of black Malurus with white wings in the 

 Western Australian Museum, one of which was figured in The 

 Emu, vol. i., plate vi. (190 1-2), together with a copy of the 

 drawing by Quoy and Gaimard of M. leucopterus. Mr. North, 

 without committing himself, could have ventured an opinion 

 whether he thought it was a rediscovery of Quoy and Gaimard's 

 species or a new bird, M . edouardi, as described in the Victorian 

 Naturalist, p. 203 (1901). Had Mr. North already not drawn 

 attention to it {vide Rec. Aust. Mus., vol. iv., pp. 209, 210) ? If, 

 as he has stated in the paper cited, the black and white birds 

 are the real leucopterus {Q. and Gaim.), the blue and white bird 

 should have been called cyanotis (Gould). In a coloured plate 

 (X.) in The Emu, vol. ii., was figured for the first time a species 

 of Mr. North's own creation, M. assimilis, and yet, although 

 he has given references for all plates of the other Maluri men- 

 tioned by him he has not noticed the plate of M . assimilis. Is 

 this because there appears on the same plate two other new 

 Maluri, the work of a contemporary ? No less an authority 

 than Dr. Bowdler Sharpe considers M . elizabcthce (Campbell) 

 and M. whitei (Campbell) to be good species {vide Emu, vol. ii., 

 p. 230). Regarding the rare M. pulcherrimus, notwithstanding 

 there have been three mounted and " exhibited in the bird 

 galleries (of the Australian Museum) in the main hall for the 

 past thirty years " (p. 224), the author dismisses the beautiful 

 species with very brief remarks. It seems unfair that he should 

 not have, even if only by way of addendum, quoted the honorary 

 ornithologist to the Western Australian Museum, Mr. A. W. 

 Milligan's, more recent interesting, if not critical, notes as given 

 in The Emu, vol. iii., pp. 14, 15 (1903), where also appears a 

 fine photo. -plate (No. III.), depicting the country frequented by 

 these birds. 



In the Proc. of the Roy. Soc. S.A., vol. xxii., p. 176 (1898), 

 Mr. G. A. Keartland mentions finding the Emu-Wren in North- 

 West Australia. Mr. North does not give that locality as a 

 habitat of Sti piturus malachums. Probably he considers that 

 .the species seen by Mr. Keartland must have been the Rufous- 

 crowned Emu-Wren (.S. ruficeps, Campbell), belonging to that 

 district, which was figured in The Ibis, plate vii. (1899), but which 

 has been ignored by the author of the " Special Catalogue." But 

 the excuse for the omission may be that its "nest and eggs" 

 have not yet been discovered ; nor have the nest and eggs of Mr. 



