THK VICTOKIAN NATURALIST. 53 



NOTE ON THE SUPERB FRUIT-PIGEON, LAM- 

 PRO TBERON SUPERBUS, Temm.* 



By a. J. North, Ornithologist Australian Museum, Sydney. 



(Read he/ore the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, litJi May, 1906.) 



I SEND for exhibition a young male and a not quite adult female 

 of the Superb Fruit-Pigeon, Lamprotreron suiierbus, Temm., 

 obtained near Cardwell, Queensland. 



Under the name of Ptilopus minutus, a similar specimen to 

 the former has been described in a Melbourne publication! as 

 a new species, and more recently the female of L. superbus 

 has been incorrectly described as the male of the supposed new 

 species. 



Both of the specimens described are Lamprotreron sioperbus. 

 Adult birds of both sexes of this species have the first primary 

 abruptly attenuated at the terminal portion, as in Ptilopus 

 swainsoni, P. eovingi, and other genera and species of the order 

 Columbse. This attenuation is but slightly indicated in young 

 birds. 



In the adult males of the genus Parotia, of the family 

 Paradiseiidse, it is more pronounced, the second as well as the 

 first primary being attenuated and becoming almost spine-like at 

 their tips. In the genus Spathopterus, of the family Psittacidse, 

 the third primary of the female is normal, but in the adult male 

 it has a spatulate termination extending beyond the end of any 

 other quill when the wing is closed, and is thus quite unlike the 

 attenuation at the terminal portion of the first primary of adult 

 specimens of Laiaprotreron aujjerbus, which is visible only 

 when the wing is spread, and is entirely hidden when it is 

 closed. 



The spatulate elongation extending from the third primary of 

 the adult male of S'pathopterus alexandrca more resembles that 

 seen on the lower wing of the well-known brilliant blue and black 

 Queensland butterfly, Papilio ulysses, Linn. 



On the accompanying plate, reproduced from a photograph, are 

 portion of the wing of an adult male of SpathojAerus alexandrce 

 and of an adult male of Lanqn'otreron sitperbus, placed side by 

 side, and both in the collection of the Australian Museum, Sydney. 

 The former is taken from a specimen procured by Mr. G. A. 

 Keartland between Glen Edith and Deering Creek, during the 

 journey of the Horn Scientific Expedition in Central i\.ustralia, 

 in 1894; and the latter is taken from a specimen procured by 

 Mr. K. Broadbent at Cairns, North-Eastern Queensland. 



* Contributions from the Australian Museum, by permission of the Trustees. 

 ■\ Emu, vol. v., p. 155 and p. 198. —Ed. Vict. Nat. 



