LARGE FROGMOUTH. 
the Strait between Cape York and New Guinea. The flight across takes place 
only at night.” 
Macgillivray {Emu, Vol. XIII., p. 158, 1914) confirms this account: 
’‘^Podargus papuensis. Papuan Frogmouth. Fairly common at Cape York, 
where it is met with both in open forest and scrub. When in the latter it 
usually roosts low down. It utters a weird and ghostly ‘ laugh ’ — a rapid 
‘ Hoo-hoo-hoo ’ — at times. It also has a call like P. strigoides, a series of ‘ Ooms ’ 
half an hour at a time, and at night. Nesting starts in October, and continues 
until January. Only one egg is laid, and there are great variations in size and 
shape. On one occasion, when he was climbing to a nest containing a young 
bird, the parent birds kept flying round and snapping their bills within a few 
feet of Mr. M‘Lennan’s head, and one kept uttering the laughing note previously 
heard at night. Irides orange, bill yellowish-olive, legs olive-yellow. Stomach 
contents usually beetles. In September numbers of these birds were seen flying 
over Thursday Island, making for the mainland.” 
These seem to be the principal notes made regarding this species in 
Australia, and the technical history seems to be as brief. Gould did not 
differentiate between the New Guinea and Australian forms, and in the 
Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum, Vol. XVI., Hartert made no 
comment on this matter, observing : “ The Museum possesses few properly 
sexed specimens,” and, on the figure alone, referred P. plumiferus Gould to 
this species. 
When I drew up my “ Reference List ” {Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., 1912) 
I separated the Australian forms from the New Guinea, and, moreover, admitted 
two subspecies in Australia, naming them as follows — 
Podargus papuensis haileyi. 
Differs from P. p. papuensis in being lighter above, and in having the 
white spotting to the feathers of the under-surface more marked, and the bill 
much smaller. Type Cairns, Queensland. 
Podargus papuensis rogersi. 
Differs from P. p. haileyi in its paler coloration, and in having a 
thick biU, but not as thick as the New Guinea bird. Type, Cape York, 
Queensland. 
In my “ List ” in 1913 I conservatively regarded these as inseparable, 
but re-consideration with more material necessitates their reinstatement. 
Thus I find that a series of Cairns birds is separable from a series from 
Cape York by their obviously darker coloration above and below, and that 
the males are sHghtly larger than the females, and have broader bills. 
VOL. vn. 
49 
