8 
WARD’S NATURAL SCIENCE BULLETIN. 
AUSTRALIAN FAUNA. 
From Tasmania (Van Dieman’s Land) and 
Australia we have received an immense series of 
the forms peculiar to those countries. Among 
the mammals of the placental division are many 
Bats, the Dingo or native dog (skins, skeletons 
and skulls') Rats and Mice, including Hydromys 
or Great Water Rat, Seals and Sea Lion, and the 
Dugong, an Australian congener of our American 
Manatee. In the division of Aplacentalia or 
marsupials, for which the Australian continent 
is so famous, there are several hundred fine skins 
and skeletons, including the Giant Kangaroo and 
other species, such as Wallaby, Petrogale, Bet- 
tengia and Rat Kangaroo; also, Phalangers, 
Phascolomys, Petaurista — a marsupial like a 
gigantic flying squirrel — Belideus, Acrobata, 
Dromicia, Tarsipes, Myrmecobius (noteworthy 
as resembling in its dentition the earliest fossil 
mammal yet discovered), Koala or “ Native 
Bear.” Dasyurus, Antechinus, Sarcophilus, 
“Tasmanian Devil,” and Thylacinus, or “Tas- 
manian Tiger.” Of this latter strange, wolf-like 
animal — a marsupial without marsupial bones — 
the Professor obtained four specimens.and ‘ ‘From 
my best sources of information while in the 
island I am convinced that there are not above 20 
to 25 specimens still alive in Tasmania.” What, 
then, will our American museums do, of which 
but three or four are provided with this strange 
form, so interesting and so essential in any sys- 
tematic collection ? Of the anomalous Mono- 
tremata, Echidna and Ornithorhynchus, Prof. 
Ward has by special effort secured more than a 
score of skins, skeletons and alcoholic specimens. 
These have always been difficult to obtain, 
especially in alcohol, and even of Ornithorhynchus 
skeletons we have had but three in ten years ! Of 
Australian birds we have received several thous- 
and skins and skeletons, among them gorgeously- 
colored Parrots, Parrakeets, Lories and Cocka- 
toos, Lyre Birds, Bower Birds, Diamond Birds, 
Emus, Bustards, Brush Turkey (Megapod), Friar 
Birds, Rifle Birds, Kingfishers — including the 
famous “Laughing Jackass,” a gigantic abnor- 
mal form which has left the water side and lives 
in trees around the settlers’ barns — Pheasant 
Cuckoos, Fruit Pigeons, Ospreys, White Gos- 
hawks, Boobook Owl, Bee Eaters, Honey Eaters, 
Fly Catchers, Goat Suckers, Crow Shrikes, Emu 
Wrens, Wattle Birds, Pittas, Herons, Cranes, 
Bitterns, Avocets, Ibis, Coots, Rails, Ducks, 
Geese — including Ghlamydochen jubatus, the 
smallest Goose known, — the beautiful Black 
Swan — the coat of arms of W. Australia — Terns, 
Gulls, Cormorants, Gannets, Petrels and Pen- 
guins. This series of forms is too large to enu- 
merate, but it is most interesting in its variety of 
species. The Turtles, Snakes, Lizards, Frogs and 
Fishes are also represented by many interesting 
forms preserved in alcohol. Among the fishes 
none are more worthy of notice than the Cera- 
todus, which will be described and figured in our 
next number. Prof. Ward also sends two large 
collections of birds from New Britain and New 
Guinea, “ that country,” as says the ornithologist 
Viellot, “in which are found the most beautiful 
birds in the world, and the most remarkable for 
the singularity of their plumage. ” Among these 
are interesting Parrots, Cockatoos, Kingfishers — 
including species of Tanysiptera,& genus restricted 
to New Guinea and its immediate vicinity,— 
Crowned Pigeons — Goura — beautiful Doves, 
Megapods, Helmet Birds, Hornbills, and nearly 
fifty fine Birds of Paradise ! Concerning these 
latter Prof. Ward writes that “they were ob- 
tained by a collector whom the citizens of that 
country (New Guinea) killed and ate last Octo- 
ber.” Among other mammals from New Guinea 
Prof. Ward obtained a fine specimen of Echidna. 
The Echidna was first discovered in New Guinea 
about four years ago, and is thus far extremely 
rare.* 
*The next number of the Bulletin will contain a 
complete list of the Mammals and Birds from New 
Britain, of which there are one or two not hitherto 
noted as coming from that locality, and a species of 
Hawk which may prove to be new. 
MICROCLOSSUM ATERRIMUM. 
4 ♦ » 
Prof. Ward’s New Zealand Collection. 
The collections made by Prof. Ward during 
his stay in New Zealand and Australia are com- 
ing in thick and fast. While many boxes have 
arrived others are still on the way, and it will be 
some time before the “returns” are all in. While 
the number of species, and often the number of 
individuals of a species, is great, yet the special 
value of these collections lies in their representa- 
tion of important, strange and interesting forms, 
many of which have never before reached us, 
nor have been obtainable by purchase from any 
source. 
It has been a part of Prof. Ward’s policy for 
long years past, that when anything was of great 
interest in itself — for its beauty, its rarity or its 
importance as a member of a systematic series — 
to obtain that object by direct collecting at the 
locality, whatever might be the cost or the 
trouble. His present tour is giving us many 
such rare and valuable forms, the first of which 
reached us from New Zealand. Among them 
are the two genera of bats, Scotophilus and Mysta- 
cina, the only two mammals which this great 
sub-region possesses. Among birds are the Tui 
or Parson Bird ( Prosthemadera Nova Zealandica ), 
with its neat tie of white feathers, and its black 
neck; the Huia (Ileterolocha Gouldii ), of which 
the male has a short, straight beak, and the 
female a long, curved one, a distinction which 
at first caused them to be described as two spe- 
cies. “ Such a remarkable difference in the 
sexes,” says Wallace, “ does not occur in any 
other known bird;” then the Crook-Billed Plover 
( Anar hynchus frontalis), I’emarkable for being the 
only bird known which has its bill bent sideways ; 
the Great Penguin (. Aptenodytes ) from Macquarie 
Id., situated far south toward the border of the 
Antarctic ice continent. Of this king of its 
family which stands straight as a soldier, over 
three feet high, Prof. Ward sends both adult and 
young — the latter a droll looking gosling as large 
as a full-grown goose, and covered with soft, 
fluffy, chocolate-colored down. With these are 
other species of Penguins (genera Spheniscus, 
Eudyptes and Eudyptula), both skins and skele- 
tons, as well as eggs. Their skeletons with long, 
sharply keeled sterna and elongated uncinate 
processes to strengthen the thorax, are striking 
illustrations of the adaptation of the bony frame- 
work to the special life of these “paddle-winged 
Sea Turtles” among birds.* Of the Great Water 
Hen ( Porphyrio ?nelanotus) are many line exam- 
ples, and the Professor writes elsewhere how near 
he was to obtaining a speciman of the famous 
Notornis Mantelli — the third in the world. 
Of the Kakas, Keas, Kakapos and Kiwis ( Nestor 
meridionalis, N notabilis , Strigops habroptilus and 
Apteryx ) we have received many specimens, both 
of skins and skeletons. The two first mentioned 
look very similar — large, long bodied Parrots, of 
a brownish olive color, with long curved and 
sharp pointed bills. f 
as: a. -EZ a. . 
But while the Kaka ( Nestor meridionalis ) feeds 
upon tree flowers and the ordinary vegetable diet 
of its family, the Kea (N. notabilis) has adopted 
a strange abnormal food It preys upon the liv- 
ing sheep of the New Zealand settlers, lighting 
on their flanks, while with feet fast fixed in their 
wool it buries its beak savagely in the flesh and 
rends a way to the kidneys, which it tears out, 
and then, only, leaves its dying prey. As New 
Zealand has no indigenous mammals (except the 
bats previously noted), it becomes an interesting- 
question how and when this Parrot assumed its 
animal diet, and its strange, bold ferocity, j: 
K 33 -A. . 
Although the Kea is strange, yet the Kakapo 
or Owl Parrot ( Strigops habroptilus) is even more 
interesting. It has the loose, soft, mottled plu- 
mage and facial disk of an owl, with the feet, 
beak and general form and attitude of a parrot. 
With fully developed wings it still does not fly,§ 
* Those who have not seen a Penguin in the water 
can hardly realize its activity. I find in looking 
over my note book that the first ones observed near 
Cape Horn are spoken of as fish. This mistake was 
due to their fish-like leaps, which much resembled 
those of the Porpoise. Afterwards I saw them nearer, 
going through the same manoeuvres on their way to 
the huge beds of floating kelp which abound in that 
vicinity. Having reached these they would lie with 
only their heads above water until the ship had 
passed. 
+ In this respect, however, they do not even approach 
the New Guinea Cockatoos Microglnssum aterrimum, 
et als.) whose bills are the longest and most attenu- 
ated of the Order Pici, so much so, indeed, that it 
seems singular that they should not be frequently 
broken. 
$ In some respects the Philip Island Parrot ( N . pro- 
ductus) is the most interesting species of this genus. 
It is apparently restricted to Philip Island, a spot of 
land only five milesin circumference, and situated near 
Norfolk, Id. Since this latter was settled the parrots 
have been rapidly killed off by the colonists, and in a 
few years will doubtless be completely exterminated. 
Prof. Ward gives an additional instance of carnivor- 
ous habits among the parrots, in the fact that the 
bodies of seals killed at Macquarie, Id., are eaten by a 
small Parrakeet ( Platycercus erythrotis). 
§ Although the wings are well developed, yet the 
keel of the sternum is almost wanting, and conse- 
quently the power of flight is gone. W hen surprised 
in a tree the bird drops heavily to the ground and 
runs away, using its wings to aid it in running. 
Flightless birds with keeled sterna, like the Penguin, 
use their abbreviated wings for flying under the 
water. 
