IV 
INTRODUCTION. 
our knowledge of Australian Birds is the discovery of a fine species of Cassowary in the rich 
colony of Queensland, a district in which have also been found many other interesting species, 
such as Tanysiptera Sylvia, Pitta Maclcloti, Orthonyx Spaldingi, and the beautiful Ptiloris 
magnijica. Western and Southern Australia have presented us with the extraordinary Geo- 
psittacus occidentalis ; Northern Australia is no less conspicuous in her novelties, since it is the 
home of the lovely Malurus coronatus, as the central portion of the country is of the Polytelis 
Alexandra, and the south-eastern coast of the Menura Alberti. 
As in the preceding seven volumes, so also in this Supplement, I have not strictly 
confined myself to the ornithological productions of Australia and its islands, hut have given 
figures and descriptions of some few birds from other, but not distant localities, which appeared 
to me of surpassing interest ; as instances in point, I may cite among others the inclusion in 
the former volumes of the extraordinary Didunculus of the Samoan Islands and the two species 
of Apteryx (A. Australis and A. Oweni) of New Zealand, and in the present volume some 
equally interesting novelties from the latter country, such as Sceloglaux albifacies, Nestor 
Esslingi, N. notabilis, Strigops habroptilus, and the now nearly extinct Notornis Mantelli. A 
few new birds from Lord Howe’s and Norfolk Island are also figured for the first time ; while 
the countries northward of those islands are represented by two important struthious birds, the 
Casuarius Bennettii and C. uniappendiculatus, of which I could not resist the temptation to give 
figures, more especially as opportunities occurred for delineating them from life ; by which 
means their heads have been represented of the natural size, and the colouring of their soft 
parts with strict fidelity, which could not otherwise have been done. 
Note. — Mr. James Cockerell, who has spent two or three seasons in the Cape- York district, believes that 
my Malurus amabilis and M. hypoleucus are male and female of the same species, for he has seen and shot them 
in company many times— the M. amabilis being the male, and M. hypoleucus the female. If this should prove to 
be the case, it will be contrary to what I have hitherto believed to be an invariable law with these birds ; for I 
have always supposed the females of the variegated Maluri, like the Common Superb Warbler ( Malurus cyaneus'), 
to be of a nearly uniform brown, that the males have a breeding and non-breeding attire, and that in the latter 
dress their appearance is very similar to that of the females. If Mr. Cockerell’s opinion be correct, then both 
males and females of the Cape-York bird will carry in winter the kind of plumage shown in my figure of M. hypo- 
leucus on the 22nd Plate of this Supplement. — 
August 1st, 1869. 
