g8 Forgotten Feathers. [ i^^"oct. 



Forgotten Feathers. 



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



Petrophassa rufipennis (Rock-Pigeon). — The type of this 

 bird was got in Arnhem Land, about the sources of the South 

 AlHgator River, in 1894 or 1895. 



On I ith November, 1845, Leichhardt, about the same locality, 

 saw this bird. He says: — "A new species of Rock-Pigeon 

 {Petrophassa, Gould) with a dark brown body, primaries light 

 brown without any white, and with the tail feathers rather worn, 

 lived in pairs and small flocks like GeopJiaps, and flew out of the 

 shade of overhanging rocks, or from the moist wells which the 

 natives had dug in the bed of the creek, around which they 

 clustered like flies round a drop of syrup."* 



Thus 50 years went by after the bird had been first seen 

 before it was described. 



This bird also has the metallic coppery-violet spot, almost 

 concealed, on some of the upper wing coverts and one of the 

 inner secondaries, the same as P. albipennis. In the original 

 description of P. rufipennis it was stated that these spots were 

 not there. The bird in my collection is a male. 



From Magazines, &c. 



Visit to Australia. — In The Avicultural Magazine 

 (March and May numbers) Mr. David Seth-Smith, F.Z.S., 

 continues {vide Enni, viii., p. 223) his pleasantly written field 

 observations. With Mr. A. J. Campbell and Messrs. C. C. 

 and T. A. Brittlebank, Mr. Seth-Smith visited the famous 

 Werribee Gorge, Victoria, where a goodly number of birds were 

 identified and field observations made. A photograph is given 

 of a scene in the Gorge, also of a typical gum-tree (eucalypt) 

 in flower, the feasting ground of Lorikeets. Another account 

 describes Ferntree Gully, in the Dandenongs, and its feathered 

 inhabitants ; also a visit to Miss Helen Bowie's aviaries, and the 

 birds seen in the Botanic Gardens, Melbourne. Of all the birds 

 Mr. Seth-Smith saw in Australia, he " liked none so well as the 

 glorious little Blue Wren." 



* * * 



Flight of Australian Mutton-Birds in the North 

 Pacific. — "On the 25th of August, for the only time during my 

 stay at Pacific Beach, Washington, the fog lifted sufficiently 

 about an hour before dark to enable me to see for a long 

 di.stance off .shore. To my surprise and extreme gratification 



* "Journal of an Overland Expedition in Australia," by Dr. Ludwig Leichhardt 

 (1847), p. 476. 



