184 Prof. F. M^Coy on two new Species of Australian Birds. 



XXXI. — On two new Species of Birds found in Victoria. By 

 Frederick M^Coy, Professor of Natural Science in the 

 Melbourne University, and Director of the National Museum 

 of Victoria, &c. 



The publication of my friend Mr. Gould's 'Handbook to the 

 Birds of Australia' has given such an impetus to the study of 

 ornithology in Australia that descriptions of two new species 

 amongst the surprisingly few which escaped his researches may 

 be of interest. One of these is a Pardalotus which seems to 

 replace the P. punctatus in the north-west part of the colony of 

 Victoria and in the adjacent colony of South Australia. The 

 other is a third, well-marked species of the genus SphenurUj 

 more robust than the other two. 



Pardalotus xanthopygus, M'Coy. 

 (Yellow-backed Diamond-bird.) 



Male. Crown of head, wings, and tail black, most of those 

 feathers having a round spot of white near the tip ; a strip 

 of white commences on the nostril and passes over each eye; 

 ear-coverts and sides of the neck grey, the margins being 

 lighter, so as to give a slight transverse mottling; feathers of the 

 back dark grey at base, with a large, triangular greyish-white 

 spot near the tip, followed by a black edge ; lower part of the 

 back, under tail-coverts, throat, and front of chest rich yellow; 

 upper tail-coverts crimson; abdomen pale-brownish cream- 

 colour, flanks greyish ; bill black ; feet brown. 



Female. Differs in having the head greyish, like the back, and 

 the throat whitish. 



Total length, from tip of bill to end of longest tail-feathers, 

 3 inches 8 lines ; bill, from forehead, rather more than 2^ 

 lines ; wing, from shoulder, 2 inches 3^ lines ; tarsus 8 lines. 



This beautiful species belongs to the same section of the genus 

 Pardalotus as the P. rubricatus, P. punctatus, and P. quadra- 

 gintuSf distinguished from the others by wanting the red sealing- 

 wax-like appendages to the spurious wing-feathers. It most 

 nearly resembles the C. punctatus (Lath., sp.), from which it dif- 

 fers in its more slender and slightly longer bill, the white instead 

 of brownish spots on the fore part of the back, the paler abdo- 

 men, greyish instead of brownish flanks — and conspicuously by 

 the hinder part of the back being of the same bright yellow as 

 the throat and under tail-coverts. 



Specimens are in the National Museum at Melbourne, from 

 Swan Hill, near the junction of the Murray and Darling; and 

 Mr. Waterhouse has presented some from near Adelaide in 

 South Australia. 



