THE BIRDS OE AUSTRALIA. 
haying evidently only recently left the nest. . . Specimens from Dirk 
Hartog appeared to be the same as those from the Per on, but the series 
of skins obtained have not yet (1917) been worked out. Comparison of 
skins from both these localities, with skins at the Perth Museum from 
Bernier Island, prove the former to differ from the last named.” 
Whitlock added : “ Mr. Carter calls this the Western Blue-breasted Wren. 
Certainly, the feathers of the breast, if held in certain lights, are black, shot with 
blue, but the true Western Blue-breasted Wrens are M alums pulcherrimus and 
Malurus elegans. Viewed from any angle, the breast feathers of these two 
Wrens show a deep indigo tint. Mr. Carter states that he has never heard 
this species uttering any song. It has a few brief rattling notes and a high- 
pitched alarm note like that of the Grass Wren ( Amytornis textilis ) ; but I 
agree with him that it is generally a very silent and unobtrusive bird, though 
this is not due to timidity.” 
Macgillivray has recorded : “ This Wren Warbler was found to be fairly 
common throughout the Gulf country. On the 28th of March a nest was 
found in rather an unusual position for this bird, being placed amongst the 
leaves of a tea-tree at about five feet from the ground. It was composed 
outwardly of fine bark, strips of grass, and skeleton leaves, and fined with 
fine rootlets and horsehair. In Western New South Wales this species builds 
on or very close to the ground. Mr. M’Lennan found it frequenting the 
tea-tree along all the rivers from the Cloncurry to the Brook near Burke- 
town.” 
Ramsay in 1875 wrote : “ I think Rockingham Bay must be the most 
northern limit of this species. The New South Wales birds differ in the tint 
of colouring from those of South Australia, being of a more verditer blue on 
the head, and of a lighter tint on the back.” 
Masters observed that the birds from the Gulf of Carpentaria were 
different from New South Wales birds, and might even represent a new species. 
When North prepared the Australian Museum Special Catalogue, No. 1, 
he reviewed the specimens of Maluri in the collection, and, noting Ramsay and 
Master’s observations, described the bird from the Gulf of Carpentaria, 
Western Queensland and Western New South Wales, as a new species with 
the name M. assimilis as darker, more purplish throughout. It may be here 
interposed that in the Handlist Gen. Sp. Birds, B.M., Vol. I., p. 204, 1869, 
appears M. caerulei-capillus Gould, a species never described by Gould. In 
the British Museum Catalogue this name was synonymised with Gould’s 
pulcherrimus and according to the present Rules the name becomes a synonym 
of that and is unavailable in any other manner. The British Museum Collection 
still contains the specimens so catalogued by G. R. Gray, and these are four in 
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