FANTAIL. 
in June — thus, June 20, 1908 : Two seen. May 20, 1910. First one seen. 
September 26, 1910. A nest containing three incubated eggs was found on 
the extremity of a pendent branch of Casuarina on the Salt or Pallinup River, 
about eight feet from the ground. In trying to pull the branch down to see 
into the nest the eggs were unfortunately jerked out and broken. The nest 
was beautifully constructed of fine bark, She-oak needles, and some grass, 
bound together with spiders’ webs. It was deep for its size, which was like a 
wineglass.” 
Whitlock writes of the birds on the East Murchison, mid-West Australia : 
“ I had the vexation to lose a specimen of a Ehipidura that may have only 
been R. preissi, but may equally well have been R. albicauda. It was the 
only one I saw during the trip.” 
When Gould examined the Australian birds he at once separated them 
from the New Zealand bird as a distinct species, giving as the locality “Van 
Diemen’s Land and South Australia.” He figured a Tasmanian specimen, and 
later wrote : “ Specimens of this bird from Tasmania are always much darker 
than those of the continent, and have the tail-feathers less marked with white ; 
others from Western Australia, again, are somewhat lighter in colour, and 
have the white markings of the tail more extensive than in those I collected in 
South Australia or New South Wales ; the bird from Western Australia has been 
characterised as distinct and named R. preissi by M. Cabanis.” 
When Sharpe prepared the fourth volume of the Catalogue of the Birds in 
the British Museum he distinguished the continental form from the Tasmanian 
one as a distinct species, but gave a new name to the latter. The name selected 
had been previously used, so he named it anew, while simultaneously, but, 
with later publication, Ramsay attempted to amend Sharpe’s name. All 
these names sink as synonyms of Gould’s original name as the type locality of 
that can only be accepted as Tasmania, and Witmer Stone has shown' that a 
Tasmanian bird was considered typical by Gould himself. I therefore corrected 
the erroneous separation of the Tasmanian bird, restoring to it Gould’s name, 
but differentiated the New South Wales form as a distinct subspecies. I called 
it Ehipidura albiscapa alisteri, writing: “Differs from typical R. albiscapa 
(Gould) in much fighter colour above and smaller size and in having the collar 
on the throat much less pronounced.” 
Previous to this two other species had been named, Ehipidura phasiana 
by De Vis from the Norman River, Kimberley, Queensland, and Ehipidura 
albicauda by North from Stoke’s Pass, Central Australia. When I prepared my 
“ Reference List ” it became obvious that all these were only subspecies and were 
closely related to the New Zealand flabellifera, and that the latter was less; 
differentiated from the east Australian form than the northern forms were.. 
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