KANGAROO AND NEW BIRDS. 321 



which weighed forty pounds^ were killed during- our 

 sta^' at Cape York. A kangaroo dog belonging to 

 Captain Stanley made several fine runs, all of them 

 unsuccessful however, as the chase was seldom upon 

 open ground, and there was little chance of over- 

 taking the kangaroo before it got into some neigh- 

 bouring thicket where the dog' could not follow it. 

 This wallaby proved to be the Halmatunis agilis, first 

 found at Port Essington, and afterwards by Leich- 

 hardt in Carpentaria. A singular bat of a reddish 

 brown colour was shot one day while asleep sus- 

 pended ft'om a branch of a tree ; it belonged to the 

 g'enus Harpyia, and was therefore a contribution to 

 the Australian fauna. 



Among many additions to the ornitholog'ical col- 

 lections of the voyag-e were eight or nine new species 

 of birds, and about seven others previously known 

 only as inhabitants of New Guinea and the neighbour- 

 ing* islands.* The first of these which came under 

 m}' notice was an enormous black parrot {Microglos- 

 ms aterrivuis) with crimson cheeks; at Cape York 

 it feeds upon the cabbage of various palms, stripping 

 down the sheath at the base of the leaves with its 

 powerful, acutelj'-hooked upper mandible. The next 

 in order of occun'ence was a third species of the 

 genus Tanysiptera (T. /S^/i-io), a gorgeous kingfisher 

 ■with two long, white, central tail-feathers, inhabiting 



* Many of these have since been figured and described, with 

 accompanying notes on their habits, &c., in the recently published 

 Supplement to Mr. Gould's Birds of Australia. 



VOL. I. Y 



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