ANNALS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM, No. 6 
41 
ORNITHOLOGICAL. 
Concerning Gergygone flavida Ramsay. — In the British 
Museum Catalogue of Birds, vol. 4, p. 330, Dr. Sharpe enters 
among the synonyms of Gerygone personata Gld, the G. flavida 
of Dr. Ramsay,* and it is believed that the propriety of the identi- 
fication has not hitherto been questioned. There are, however, 
good grounds for doubting it. Dr. Sharpe regards the bird described 
as flavida as a female, for to his entry of it he adds the feminine 
symbol in brackets. Doubtless he felt at liberty to do so, since 
Dr. Ramsay had omitted to state the sex of his type. That omission 
was, as it proved, unfortunate, but by no means remarkable, 
since, in the absence of a counterstatement, it is generally inferred 
that a bird described is or is believed to be a male. But in the 
present case we are not by the description itself left without evidence 
that the type is really a male bird, for it gives as one of the characters 
" a stripe on either side of the throat, from the base of the lower 
mandible to below the ear coverts, white" — "the moustachial 
streak " of l5r. Sharpe. This feature occurs also in the male of 
G. personata, but curiously enough no mention of it is made by 
Dr. Sharpe in his description of the female of that species, by 
means of which he identifies with it G. flavida. This shews that 
in G. personata at least the moustachial streak is a masculine 
character, and the fact would at least have justified the use of a 
" ? " after the feminine symbol aforesaid. To endeavour to settle 
the question, permission to examine Dr. Ramsay's type was solicited 
from the Authorities of the Australian Museum, and with great- 
kindness granted by them. The label in the describer's handwriting- 
indicated a male in the usual way. There is no room left for 
any doubt about the correctness of the indication when we compare 
the type with other co-sp3cific examples from the same locality. 
It becomes perfectly clear that the white moustache is a masculine 
ornament in this species also, and that it is not assumed until 
the bird is fully adult. Of such birds there is but one in a series 
of seven, its sex attested by the mode of crossing the legs, adopted 
by the collector, Mr. K. Broadbent, and from this example Dr. 
Ramsay might have drawn up his description in exactly the same 
terms as he used. If it were necessary to adduce any further 
reason for rescuing G. flavida from the limbo of synonymism, due 
weight might be given to the affirmation of the collector that the 
haunts of G. flavida are quite different from those of G. personata. 
The latter inhabits low dense scrubs at Cape York, the former 
he obtained only from the tops of lofty forest trees in the Herberton 
district. Before dismissing the type specimen, it may be useful 
to those who have to identify with it examples of the other sex 
or different ages to mention two characters not included in Dr. 
Ramsay's description, but present in the species, an orbital ring 
* Pro. Lin. Soc, New South Wales, v. 2, p. 537. 
