THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
I would draw attention to a note by Mr. Campbell reading : “ However, it 
is recorded that Mr. Illridge in former years had shot the bird as far south as the 
Greenwood Scrub, near Brisbane.” 
I think there must have been some error in this record, as this is so 
typically a bird of the “New Guinea” style that a most southern record like the 
one suggested would be a very valuable item, were it authenticated. 
Its allies are few in number, and are restricted to the Papuan Region, so 
that while it would range as far south as Cardwell, its occurrence near Brisbane 
would be quite unexpected. 
Gould at once instituted a new genus for this species when he received it 
from Macgillivray, who informed him that it was shot at Cape York by Mr. James 
Wilcox, who observed it on the skirts of one of the dense brushes or jungles, 
making short flights in the air, snapping at passing flies, and returning again to 
the same tree, the Wormia alata of botanists, distinguished by its red papery 
bark, large glossy leaves and handsome yellow flowers, which attract numbers 
of insects. 
Two Australian subspecies are recognisable : 
Machcerirhynchus flaviventer flaviventer Gould. 
Cape York, North Queensland. 
MachcBrirhynchus flaviventer secundus Mathews. 
Cairns district, North Queensland. 
Separated on account of its larger size. 
There are only two or three other species of this distinct genus, and they 
seem easily separable. Rothschild and Hartert considered the Aru Island birds 
as conspecific with the Queensland ones, but Ogilvie-Grant wrote : “I can see 
no reason for regarding this form (M. xanihogenys ) as a subspecies of the 
Australian M. flaviventer Gould, which is distinguished at a glance from the 
several New Guinea species by its black ear-coverts and olive-green back in 
the adult stage I consider it most misleading to place the present 
species as a subspecies of M. flaviventer .” 
Other New Guinea species bear the names M. albifrons Gray, and M. 
nigripectus Schlegel, but no form is as yet known from the Northern Territory. 
This is good evidence in connection with the distribution of Papuan-Australian 
species, as most of these seem to have come into Australia via Cape York, and 
thence distributed westwards. 
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