RED-CHEEKED PARROT. 
The avifauna of Cape York and the district adjoining has been the study 
of many systematic workers, as instance, Gould, Ramsay, Salvadori, Hartert, 
through the efforts of the collectors who have visited there from Macgillivray 
the elder to Macgillivray the younger and Kemp. The list includes Broadbent, 
D’ Albertis, Meek, Rogers, Barnard, McLennan and others. No striking 
novelty has fallen to the careful and close search of the latest workers, the 
acquisition of a small form of Dacelo gigas , a representative of the New Guinea 
Crcicticus mentalis and a small Robin, a form of which also occurs in New Guinea, 
being the most remarkable items. 
Almost as well worked has been the district round Cooktown, four 
hundred miles south of Cape York with no outstanding difference, the avifauna 
being of the same nature though a little depauperated, the large Probosciger 
citerrimus being absent with other immaterial differences. However, one 
hundred miles further south is Cairns and near there is the Bellenden Ker 
Range of Mountains. A very peculiar element has been there established and 
many bird students have examined this locality so that we have a good know- 
ledge of this bird faunula. It is characterised by a strong endemism represented 
in the two restricted genera of Bower Birds, Prionodura and iScenopceetes. 
These peculiar forms of a very highly developed, perhaps the most highly 
developed, avian group indicate isolation for an extremely long time. It is 
noteworthy that these peculiar genera have their nearest allies living among 
the high mountains of New Guinea, while the lowland forms at the foot of the 
Bellenden Ker Range are the familiar East Australian species. It has been 
long recognised that this Bellenden Ker Range must have been isolated as 
an island at some period while previous to that isolation continuity with the 
New Guinea Mountains must have existed. Between the Bellenden Ker 
Range and the New Guinea Mountains, from an examination of the known 
avifauna of the Cape York District, the avifauna is comparatively uniform 
and unnoteworthy. The species living on each side of Torres Straits afe 
comparable, and in most cases only sub specific ally separable. It may be as 
well to again quote Hedlev’s conclusion that “ a slight elevation of less than 
ten fathoms would now serve to connect the shores of New Guinea and Cape 
York.” Also that “ In the heart of a great Queensland scrub a naturalist 
could hardly say from his surroundings whether he were in New Guinea or 
Australia.” It is a necessary corollary that little endemism would be found 
when the stocks were the same and the environmental stresses so similar. 
Consequently no peculiar novelties could be anticipated in the Cape York 
District and the researches of all the workers up to 1912 confirmed this. 
McLennan then visited Cape York on behalf of Dr. W. Macgillivray and from 
investigations there, reported the hearsay accounts of big strange Parrots a 
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