Order PASSERIFORMES. 
Family MELITHREPTIDM. 
No. 668. 
DOROTHINA VERSICOLOR. 
VARIED HONEY-EATER. 
(Plate 532.) 
Ptilotis versicolor Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.), 1842, p. 136, February 1843 : North 
Coast of Australia =Cape York. 
Ptilotis versicolor Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.), 1842, p. 136, 1843; id., Birds Austr., 
pt. xv. (Vol. IV., pi. 34), Sept. 1st, 1845 ; id., Handb. Birds Austr., Vol. I., 
p. 506, 1865; Ramsay, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.), 1875, p. 595, 1876 ; id., Proc. 
Linn. Soc. N.S.W., Vol. II., p. 189, 1878; Gadow, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. IX., 
p. 234, 1884 ; Ramsay, Tab. List Austr. Birds, p. 12, 1888 ; Campbell, Nests and 
Eggs Austr. Birds, Vol. I., p. 392, 1901; North, Viet. Nat., Vol. XXI., p. 167, 
1905 (Eggs); id., Emu, Vol. V., p. 44, 1905 ; Smith, ib., p. 210, 1906 ; North, Austr. 
Mus. Spec. Cat., No. 1, Vol. II., p. 118, 1907 ; Mathews, Hand! Birds Austral., p. 96, 
1908 ; (Banfield), Emu, Vol. VIII., p. 285, 1909 ; Macgillivray, tb., Vol. X., pp. 221— 
231,1910; Barnard, ib., Vol. XI., p. 28, 1911; Macgillivray, tb., Vol. XIII., 
p. 178, 1914 ; Campbell and Barnard, ib., Vol. XVTI., p. 33, 1917 ; Macgillivray, ib., 
p. 205, 1918. 
Ptilotis versicolor versicolor Mathews, Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., p. 406, 1912. 
Meliphaga versicolor Mathews, List Birds Austr., p. 275, 1913; id., Austral Avian Record, 
Vol. II., p. 79, 1913. 
Meliphaga versicolor clelaiidi Mathews, Austral Av. Rec., Vol. II., pt. 7, p. 132, Jan. 28th, 
1915 : Cairn Cross Island, Barrier Reef. 
Meliphaga versicolor versicolor Mathews, ib. 
Distribution. North Queensland only, mostly on the islands off the Coast. 
Adult female, l op of the head, back of the neck, mantle and upper back dark olive-green 
with blackish-brown middles to each feather, giving these parts a somewhat mottled 
appearance; lower back and rump tinged with brownish-buff; wing-coverts dark 
olive-green, narrowly fringed with greenish-yellow ; flight-feat hors ashy-brown 
margined on the outer web with yellowish-green and with rich buff on the inner 
web ; tail-feathers dark greenish-olive, margined on the outer web with greenish- 
yellow, all the feathers being indistinctly barred across with blackish-brown; 
feathers in front of the eye black, continued over and above the eye and terminating 
in a large patch on the sides of the neck; a stripe below the eye and lower half of 
the ear-coverts golden-yellow; a yellowish-whi te patch behind the ear-coverts; 
chin yellowish-white, chest, breast, sides of the body and flanks golden-yellow, 
each feather mesially streaked with blackish-brown; abdomen and under tail-coverts 
470 
