320 Mr. W. R. Ogllvie-Grant on Birds 



g-i^ J 5 . Parimau, Mimika River, 12th & 2Ath. Sept., 

 and 16th Nov. 1910. [Nos. 179, 250, C. H. B. G., & 1522, 

 G. C. S.] 



h. ? . Kapare River, 13th Nov. 1910. [No. 478, 

 C.H.B.G.^ 



I. .? imm. Wataikwa River, 14th Oct. 1910. [No. 1360, 

 G. C. S.] 



m-t. (J ? et c? juv. Launch Camp, Setakwa River, 5th- 

 17th Oct. & Ist-Srd Nov. [C. B. Z".] 



When writing the twenty-second volume o£ the ' Catalogue 

 o£ Birds,' I followed Oustalet in uniting the Australian 

 Megapode described as M. tumulus Gould with M. duperreyi. 

 At that time the Museum possessed five specimens only from 

 New Guinea, three adult birds from the type-locality, Dorei 

 on Geelvink Bay, and two immature birds from the 

 Astrolabe Mountains in the south-east. 



A careful examination has been made of the fine series 

 collected by our expedition between the Mimika and Utakwa 

 Rivers, and the specimens have been compared with the 

 series already in the British Museum, arranged according to 

 their geographical distribution. The new material now 

 under consideration was collected between the middle of 

 September and the end of March, and several of the speci- 

 mens killed in September and October are in moult. These 

 birds, taken as a whole series, have the colour of the back 

 very uniform and are of a much more olivaceous-brown and 

 less rufous tint than the majority of specimens from North- 

 east Australia and its adjacent islands ; the Mimika and 

 Utakwa birds are rather more olive than typical speci- 

 mens of M. duperreyi from Dorei, and examples from 

 the Kei and Aru Islands, but birds from the last-named 

 localities appear to be in freshly-moulted plumage. One 

 female specimen from Wokan, Aru Islands, collected by 

 the ' Challenger ' Expedition, is very rufous on the back and 

 is as dark as any from Cape York, and quite indistinguishable 

 among the series from North Queensland. On the other 

 hand, our birds from Port Essington seem to approach the 

 Mimika birds in the colour of the back, but it must be 



