
CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE ZOOLOGY OF NORTH QUEENSLAND. 115 
Petrie and Quibell on the desert surface are, just like the Abu Shahrein 
flints, not to be distinguished from many of those in this Museum found 
by Seton-Karr on the surface of the Theban plateau, and in the Wady 
el Sheikh mines; and that as many of the plateau implements have been 
found in close association with nodules and the flakes struck from them, 
it seems impossible to believe that these could remain (even in a single 
instance) undisturbed from the palolithic days of Europe to the present 
time, when the forest under which they were made, and the forest soil on 
which they reposed have been entirely carried away. This reasoning applied 
to the Somaliland implements shows that they must be of an age much 
more recent than paleolithic, and probably even comparatively recent. 
The conclusions it seems to me, legitimate to draw from a study 
of the collection here described, are that rude and paleolithic forms, 
amount and depth of patina, and surface condition are characters which 
cannot be depended on to fix the date of stone implements when there is no 
possibility of determining the geological age of the strata whence they have 
come, and in the absence of associated faunistic remains. Also, that the 
similarity, and even identity, of form in the stone implements of two widely 
separated localities are of themselves insufficient evidence of contact between 
the races who made them. And, likewise, that none of the surface 
. “paleolithic” implements from Egypt and Somaliland have yet been clearly 
proved to belong to that period, while the probability is that the bulk 
of them are of much later date. 
The only flint implements from Egypt known to me to have yet been found 
embedded undoubtedly in position, were discovered by General Pitt-Rivers in 
the stratified, indurated, gravelly debris at the mouth of a wady -— the Babel 
Molook—near the Tombs of the Kings, which all geologists who know the spot, 
‘agree must have been deposited far back in pre-historic times. Doubt has been 
thrown, however, by a distinguished, but on this question supposed by some 
to be asomewhat biassed, geologist (the late Sir William Dawson) on the really 
artificial character of the flints. The General has, however, recently re-staked 
his great archeological reputation on their being truly human productions. 
The evidence of the paleolithic* age of man in Egypt would appear, therefore, 
to rest for the moment on the flakes and very rude scraper-like flints, found in 
the Babel Molook gravels. . 
Contributions to the Zoology of North Queensland. 
By Herpert C. Roprnson, M.B.O.U. 
Trichoglossus nove-hollandiz, subsp. septentrionalis, subsp. nov.— 
Trichoglossus, 7. nove-hollandie, affinis, sed magnitudine parva, capite et 
plagé abdominali leete azureis, nec purpurascentibus, facile distinguendus. 
é Long. tot. Al. Caud. 
Trichoglossus septentrionalis . 233-250 140-144 113-123 mm. 
= nove-hollandie . 304-320 153-163 140-163mm. 
(5 specimens). 
Halntat. North Queensland (Cooktown). 
It seems curious that the marked difference in size between northern and 
southern specimens of 7’. nover-hollandie should have been (as far as I am 
aware) overlooked.t 

* These implements were originally described in 1881 in the Jowrnal of the Anthro- 
pological Institute by General Pitt-Rivers as neolithic, but they were somewhat later 
referred by him to the palolithic age. 
+Since these notes were in type, Mr. Hartert has observed in his article On the 
Birds of Cape York (Novit. Zool., vi., p. 428, 1899) that specimens before him from 
that locality are smaller and brighter coloured. 
