THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 91 



Governor, Lord Kintore, on his recent journey across from Port 

 Darwin to Adelaide, saw a small flock of these birds (out of which 

 he shot three) near Newcastle Waters. He had seen the two 

 cage birds which I mentioned last year, and not only kept a 

 careful watch for the species on his journey, but made inquiries 

 about it at various places in the interior, with the result that he 

 found several persons who said that they had seen it in different 

 localities, extending nearly as far eastward as the Queensland border. 

 He tells me also that he has since heard of its being seen upon 

 the Victoria River. One of the birds which he shot escaped 

 while the doctor was reloading his gun, but the skins of the two 

 others are now in our museum. It is a strange coincidence that 

 Mr. F. G. Waterhouse, the discoverer of the species, about 29 

 years ago, in the same locality, saw one flock only, and shot three 

 birds. In Dr. Stirling's specimens, which are both males, the 

 colours are, perhaps, are a little brighter than in the living birds 

 which I described last year. The patches of green on the wings 

 are certainly larger, and in the length of their tails they exceed 

 any specimens of Polytelis melanura or P. barrabandi that I have 

 seen. The one specimen measures 17 inches in total length, the 

 other 16 inches, while the tails measure about i2j^ and iij4 

 inches. I admit that there is a good deal of resemblance in the 

 general colouring to the female Rock-Pebbler, but the red mark- 

 ings on the wings of the latter are entirely absent, and neither 

 F. melanura or P. barrabandi has the patches of pale blue on 

 the crown and on the rump that are found in this species. The 

 rose-pink on the throat, cheeks, and sides of the neck in P. alex- 

 andrce covers about the same spaces (with the exception that there 

 is none on the forehead) that are occupied by the yellow and 

 crimson in P. barrabandi, and this is the extent of the resemblance 

 in markings of the two species. 



P. alexandrm has been found in places nearly 600 miles apart, 

 and also in parts of the intermediate country, but I have no know- 

 ledge of any specimens of either P. melanura or P. barrabandi 

 having been brought from any portion of the interior inhabited by 

 this bird. If the supposed (comparatively) new species is a 

 hybrid, scattered over such a large extent of country, surely the 

 parent birds must be there also, and they are not species that 

 would escape observation. 



I find that I was mistaken when writing my former letter in 

 thinking that no museum in the world contained a specimen of 

 this bird, as Dr.. Ramsay, of Sydney, informs me that one of those 

 obtained by Mr. Waterhouse is now in the Dobroydi collection 

 at Ashfield, New South Wales. — I am, &c., 



M. SYMONDS CLARK. 

 Adelaide, 20^,^ August, 1891. 



