298 Bulletin of the British 



Mr. Seebohm exhibited an example of the North- Australian 

 Ground-Thrush, Geocichla heiriii (Cabanis) = Oreocincla 

 iodura of Gould, and remarked as follows : — " This specimen 

 has a very curious history. About the year 1836 it was sold 

 by Brandt, the well-known Hamburg taxidermist, to Baron 

 von Gyllenkrog. Brandt asserted that it had been shot 

 on Fyen (Fiihnen), the large island at the south-east corner 

 of Jutland. On the death of the Baron it became the 

 property of the governors of the University of Lund, in 

 Sweden. The veteran ornithologist of Heligoland erroneously 

 identified it with the Himalayan Ground-Thrush, and recorded 

 it as Tardus dauma (see Gaetke, Vogelw. Helgoland, p. 245), 

 asserting that the alleged locality was erroneous — an assertion 

 which is probably correct, and substituting the statement 

 that it had been caught on Heligoland in the days when 

 Koopman and the elder Reymers, the well-known Heligoland 

 bird-stuffers, were in the habit of sending skins to Brandt — 

 a statement which is probably incorrect. Curiously enough, 

 the type of Geocichla heinii in the Museum of Oberamtmann 

 Ferdinand Heine at Halberstadt was purchased of a dealer 

 (probably the same Brandt of Hamburg), with the locality 

 ' Japan ' attached to it. In the Lund specimen, which I am 

 able to exhibit to-night, thanks to the courtesy of the 

 authorities of that Institution, the russet (rather than olive) 

 tone of the upper parts, the absence of pale subterminal 

 spots on each feather of the same, conclusively prove that it 

 cannot be either the Siberian or the Himalayan Oreocincla, 

 whilst its small size, short tail, and large white terminal 

 patch on the outer rectrices show its distinctness from its 

 near ally in South-east Australia [G. lunulata), and prove the 

 species to be G. iodura (Gould) . It is satisfactory to be able 

 to relieve the list of European birds of a species like 

 G. dauma, so thoroughly Indian and non-migratory that its 

 occurrence in Heligoland was difficult to account for.'-* 



Mr. ScLATER exhibited a kind of needle used by the natives 

 of Northern Queensland for the purpose of weaving bags to 

 hold "Pituri" (leaves of an intoxicating plant). The needle 



