November, 1922 
1 18 The Queensland Naturalist. 
for its exactitude. He it was who scientifically described 
the new tropical and sub-tropical birds taken by Broadbent, 
amung which may be mentioned such fine discoveries as the 
Golden Bower-bird ( Prionodura newtoniana) and the 
Fern-bird ( Oreoscopus gutturalis) . 
Quite an interesting scrap of history attaches to the 
finding of the remarkable Golden Bower-bird. Latterly 
regarded as ‘ * one of the three handsomest birds in 
Australia,” it was first known from a dull-coloured 
immature specimen, taken by Broadbent in the wild valley 
of the Herbert in 1882, and De Vis felt impelled to tender 
a mild apology for its plainness. “In honouring this 
Bower-bird with the name of Professor Newton,” he wrote,* 
“it is hoped that the interest attaching to it will be accepted 
as an equivalent for its plentiful lack of colour.” The 
awakening came seven years later. Mr. A. Meston, during 
his expedition to Mount Bellenden-Ker in 1889, shot a 
beautiful bird which De Vis pronounced to be new, and 
which he named Corymbicola mestoni , Meston ’s Bower-bird. 
That deduction was wrong. Broadbent took one of the 
regal golden-feathered birds a day or two after Meston, 
and proved it to be the adult of his Prionodura newtoniana , 
the extraordinary creature that built “gunyalis” in lieu 
of bowers. -Accordingly, the synonymic name was dropped, 
and the fine species has since been known in the vernacular 
as Newton’s, or the Golden -Bower-bird. There is a good 
series of the species mounted at a “gunyah” in the 
Queensland Museum. It is notable there that the yellowish- 
gold of the mal°s has faded considerably, whereas the 
reddish-gold of Regent-birds, in a case close by, is still 
warm and rich. 
An illuminating account of the “discovery” of De Vis 
* himself i« given by Mr. Brenan, who says: “During the 
eighties the trustees of the Queensland Museum were 
looking oi 1 * foe a curator, and Price Fletcher (then 
agricultural editor of the Queenslander and the 
writer of Notes by a Naturalist') drew the attention 
of the late Archibald Archer and Albert Norton, both 
trustees of the museum, to contributions in his Nature 
column over the name of ‘Thickthorn.’ Tt was decided 
that ‘Thick thorn’ was worth looking up, and as Mr. Norton 
was member for Port Curtis, in some remote part of which 
‘ Thickthorn ’ was hidden away. Mr. Norton undertook to 
find him. That is how De Vis became curator. My 
authority for all this was Price Fletcher. De Vis was a 
very retiring man. He lived for years at Oxley, and 
* Proceedings, Linnean Society, N.S.W.. 1S82, d. 56^ 
