LITTLE KINGFISHER. 
from Rendova Island, also in the Solomon Group. That is, he admitted 
three subspecies of A. richardsi, all from the Solomon Group, through allowing 
A. pusilla to range from the Moluccas over the whole of New Guinea and 
Northern Austraha without any subspecies being discernible. I would 
regard, however, A. richardsi as displayed by Ogilvie-Grant as simply an 
outlying subspecific form of A. pusilla. 
I have re-examined the Australian series, and in conjunction have 
criticised extra-limital birds. There are a number of ill-defined subspecies 
and a few weU-defined forms. Geographically, we could expect Arfak 
Peninsula, Moluccas, South-west New Guinea, Aru Islands, and South-east 
New Guinea to show distinct subspecies, but no long series are available. In 
Australia three subspecies are certainly separable, the two furthest geo- 
graphically apart being the most closely allied. I have no series from Port 
Essington, Northern Territory, but odd specimens from the mainland of 
Northern Territory cannot be separated at present from the Melville Island 
bird ; hence, for these I use North’s name subspecifically and call them 
Micralcyone pusilla ramsayi (North). 
The birds from Cape York are more bluish and less greenish than the 
preceding, and are easily separable from the next in lacking the purplish 
colour and being smaller in size. They are separable from the typical birds by 
being less purple on the upper-parts, so that they must be distinguished as 
Micralcyone pusilla yorki, subsp. nov. 
Type, a male collected at Cape York on the 31st January, 1912. 
In the Austral Avian Record, Vol. II., 1915, I gave details of Diggles’ 
papers, and (p. 149) discussed his Alcyone assimilis described in the Trans. 
Philos. Soc. Queensl. (Vol. II., pi. 6, 1878) as from Cape York, collected by 
Cockerell. I there showed that the birds so localised came from islands to the 
north, and concluded from the species listed that they came from the Aru 
Islands. I wrote : “ It should be well known, but it is as well to emphasise it 
again, that J. T. Cockerell made a trip to Cape York, and arrived back 
with a large collection of birds, presumably Queensland collected, but which 
had been obtained on the islands to the north, apparently the Aru Islands.” 
Since that was written I have been presented by Mr. G. S. Diggles, the sW of 
Diggles the ornithologist, with a letterbook containing copies of letters written 
by Diggles on ornithological subjects, and in one appears a note advising 
the return of Cockerell from Cape York and the Aru Islands. Consequently, 
as I concluded, the specimens of A. assimilis were procured on the Aru Islands 
and Diggles’ name is available for the Aru Island form. It would then be 
named 
Micralcyone pusilla assimilis (Diggles). 
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