96 MR. P. L. SCLATER ON BIRDS FROM [Feb. 20, 
and other places, as well as several objects of natural history, inclu- 
ding the white Gallinule (Fulica alba) of Lord Howe’s Island. One 
of these drawings represents ‘‘ Port Hunter,’’? Duke-of-York Island, 
and, no doubt, gives a fair idea of the island as it then existed. 
“Several of the French expeditions visited these islands. De 
Bougainville’ in 1768, the year after Carteret’s discoveries, spent 
some days at the southern end of New Ireland, and named the small 
cove at the eastern end of Gowan’s Harbour ‘ Port Praslin.’ This 
spot was afterwards visited by Duperrey in the ‘Coquille’ in 1823; 
and here the only entomological collections which have hitherto 
reached Europe from this island were made. These were described 
in the Zoology of the Voyage of the ‘ Coquille’ by Guérin-Méneville ; 
and several of the butterflies are figured in the atlas of that work. 
“The different explorers who have visited these islands seem to 
have been variously impressed with them, according, perhaps, to the 
season of the year when they were there. All, however, extol the 
richness of the verdure, the extent of the forests, as well as the 
grandeur of the scenery of both New Britain and New Ireland; but 
the climate is very humid, and the rainfall at times excessive.” 

The following papers were read :— 
1. On the Birds collected by Mr. George Brown, C.M.Z.S., 
on Duke-of-York Island, and on the adjoining parts of 
New Ireland and New Britain. By P. L. Scuarsr, 
M.A., Ph.D., F.R.S., Secretary to the Society. 
[Received February 19, 1877.] 
(Plates XIV.—XVI.) 
I am now in a position to give the Society a better account of the 
collection of Birds made by our Corresponding Member, Mr. George 
Brown, in Duke-of-York Island and on the adjacent portions of New 
Ireland and New Britain, which I exhibited at our second meeting 
in January last®. Before, however, I do this, I will make a few 
preliminary remarks, to serve as an introduction to this and the 
papers to follow, which some of my friends have been kind enough 
to prepare, on other branches of Mr. Brown’s collections. 
For my first introduction to Mr. Brown, I am indebted to Dr. F. 
Miller, the well-known botanist, of Melbourné, who wrote to me in 
1874 pointing out Mr. Brown’s enthusiastic love for natural history, 
and recommending his election as a Corresponding Member of the 
Society. Mr. Brown was at that time attached to the Wesleyan 
Mission in the Samoan group, but shortly afterwards returned to 
Sydney, and was sent out as the leader of a new Wesleyan Mission at 
Port Hunter, Duke-of-York Island. Mr. Brown left Sydney in 
1 © Voyage round the World,’ by Lewis de Bougainville, translated by 
John Reinhold Forster. 4to0: London, 1773. 
» See above, p. 28. 
