BUFF-BANDED BAIL. 
after scattering and, in some instances, destroying the eggs. The chicks, 
when hatched, are covered with soft black down, which makes them almost 
invisible on the dark ploughed ground. 
“ Strange to say, a pair did not depart last January [1910], their usual 
time, but have stayed on in my garden.” 
Mr. Berney*, writing from Bichmond, North Queensland, says : “ May 
be seen occasionally, generally during the summer months, but its movements 
are so uncertain that I cannot say whether it is migratory or not. I have 
one winter record — June, 1903. The only sound I have heard from it is 
a sharp, slate-pencil-hke squeak. They are hard to flush, being so very loth 
to fly ; they are, too, most stupid birds, and fall an easy prey to cats. A pair 
nested during January, 1904, within 150 yards of the house eleven 
eggs were laid. When walking, they carry the tail very erect, and keep 
flicking it, flke the Porphyries. ” 
The bird figured and described was obtained at Beveridge, in Victoria, 
on the 26th of March, 1908, by Mr. Frank Howe, who kindly gave me 
the specimen. 
When Dr. Sharpe wrote in the Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. XXIII., he 
included under ** Hypotcenidia pliilippinensis,'^'* specimens from the Philippines, 
Moluccas, Australia, Pacific Islands and New Zealand. He acknowledged 
(p. 41) : “ At the same time I must admit that there is a considerable amount of 
variation in the plumage, which it is difficult to account for,” but concluded 
(p. 42), “Yet there is no reason for separating the species into races, 
because there is absolutely no character by which these differences can be 
defined.” 
I have carefully examined all the material in the British Museum, and also 
at the Zoological Museum, Tring, and find that the species can be easily spht up 
into races. As everyone hitherto has shirked the task of differentiating the 
various subspecies, and as it was necessary for me to go thoroughly into this 
matter, I herewith give the results of my studies. I hope that this will serve as 
a groundwork, and now that I have initiated this matter, this Bail will receive 
its fair share of treatment. Apparently up to the present every Bail that looked 
like the conventional Ballus pliilippensis was so called from whatever portion of 
the Pacific it might have been brought. The few writers who have named forms 
have been ignored, and the general unscientific lumping-policy which has 
been accepted in the Cat. Birds, has been since maintained. As a matter of fact 
the majority of the forms I hereafter separate can easily be recognised, the 
characters of each subspecies being constant and easily grasped. Much work has 
still to be done in recording the various phases of the immature plumage, but here 
* Emu, VI., p. 108 (1907). 
195 
