HEMIPODIUS 
MELANOGASTER, 
Gould. 
Black-breasted Hemipode. 
Hemipodius melanog aster, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 7. 
Australia may be said to constitute the great nursery of the Hemipodes ; for no other country is inhabited 
hy so many species, and certainly there is not a finer one in existence than the subject of the present Plate. 
Future research will doubtless furnish others, and in all probability the interior, at present a terra incognita, 
will not he wanting in species of a form peculiarly adapted to inhabit the sterile kind of country of which it 
is supposed to consist. 
I regret that, never having seen this species in a state of nature, I am unahle to render any account of its 
hahits and economy. It is a native of the eastern portion of Australia ; specimens in my own collection, 
and in those of the Zoological Society and King’s College, London, were all procured at Moreton Bay. 
Judging from analogy, I presume that the sexes present little or no difference in their markings; until 
we are enabled to resort to dissection, we cannot with certainty ascertain whether the same disparity in the 
size of the sexes occurs in this species as in the other members of the genus ; in all probability the female 
will he found to exceed the male. 
Crown of the head, ear-coverts, throat and centre of the abdomen black ; over eaeh eye extends a line of 
feathers having each a small white spot at the tip ; this line extends to the nape, which part is also thickly 
spotted with white on a black and chestnut-coloured ground ; feathers on the sides of the chest and flanks 
black, having a large crescent-shaped marking of white near the tip ; mantle and upper part of the back 
rich chestnut brown, each feather having a spot of white and a stripe of black on each side, and barred with 
black at or near the tip ; shoulders, greater and lesser wing-coverts rufous brown, each feather having a 
white spot surrounded with a black line ; primaries dark brown ; thighs and upper and under tail-coverts 
brown, freckled and crossed with black ; bill light brown ; feet flesh-colour. 
The Plate represents the bird of the natural size. 
