©ffkial ©rgan oi the ^iietralasian dDnvithologiets' Enion. 



" Birds of 2i feather.' 



Vol. IX.] I2TH JULY, 1909. [Part i. 



On the Birds of North- West Australia.* 

 By Gregory M. Mathews, F.L.S., F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



With Field Notes by the Collector, J. P. Rogers. 



Part I. — Birds from Wyndham. 

 In June, 1908, I arranged with Mr. J. P. Rogers to collect bird- 

 skins for me in North-West Australia, that part of the country 

 being well known to him. He reached Wyndham on ist 

 August, and pitched his camp about 25 miles from there, on 

 Parry's Creek. He writes: — " My camp is 5 miles west of Trig. 

 Station H.J. 9, which is marked on the Lands and Survey 

 Department Lith, No. 142, which accompanies this. It is on 

 the edge of a large plain which stretches into Wyndham. This 

 plain turns into a salt-marsh about 9 miles from Wyndham, at a 

 place known as the Nine-mile Ridge. Between my camp and 

 this ridge the plain is flooded in the wet season, and forms a 

 great breeding-ground for many species of waterfowl. In the 

 other direction, up Parry's Creek, there is plenty of scrub along 

 the creek, and also plenty of fairly large timber. At a short 

 distance from the camp there are two rough ranges of hills, and 

 at the bottom of these hills to the south-west there is a high 

 plateau that is always dry, even in the wet season. I think that 

 the locality should give good results, as there are all descriptions 

 of country within a short distance of my camp. 



"In this district very few birds use feathers for lining their 

 nests ; Tcsniopygia castanotis alone seems to do so." 



So far I have received three hundred and thirty skins of 

 seventy-one species. 



Syncecus sordidus (Sombre Brown Quail). 

 Mathews, Handl. B. Austr., No. 12. 

 Two adult males and two females. Parry's Creek, 29/9/08, 

 10/10/08. 



* Ml-. Mathews proposes to coiUhuie observations on the North-Western birds on 

 the excellent lines laid down by Mr. Robert Hall, C.M.Z.S., &c. Vide Enm.x., 

 p. 87 ; ii., p. 49; and vii., p. 138. In the technical names Mr. Mathews follows 

 his " Handhst " {vide SuppL, Emu, vii.), while the vernacular names are according 

 to the list of Australian birds adopted by the Australasian Association for the 

 Advancement of Science (1898). The latter list is mainly followed by the A.O.U., 

 pending the adoption of an authorized Australian " Check- List. "—Eds. 



