WHITE-BELLIED CRIMSON FINCH. 
under-parts smoky-brown; middle of the belly, abdomen and under tail-coverts 
bulfish-white; under-surface of wings ash-giey ; under-surface of tail ash-brown, 
fringed with dull carmine on their outer webs. Eyes greyish-brown, bill blacldsh- 
brown, legs and feet yellow tinged with brown, claws pale brown. Collected on 
the Watson River, North Queemsland, on the 14th of June, 1914. 
NeM and eggs and breeding-habits similar to Neochmia phaeton. 
I DESCRIBED tliis distinct species very shortly as : “ Differs from N. p, 
phaeton in liaving a white belly and a gi-ey head. Type from Claudie River, 
North Queensland.” 
Macgihivray’s notes (the only ones yet made) read : “ This new subspecies 
of the Crimson Finch we first found on 31st December in a small watercourse 
rumfing thi'ough long grass towards a large patch of scrub on the Claudie. 
We did not come across it again until the 19th January, when we first secured 
a specimen in Paruianus and long-grass comitry near a swamp. Two days 
later we saw a few more, again in the same class of country. Mr. McLerman 
found it to be common on the Archer River, where it was nestuig m April. 
He found Iris first nest, containing four eggs, in a PaTidanus, and it was 
mostly in the Pandanus flats that he found them. He also noted them 
catcliing and eating flying termites.” 
This species shows more clearly the colour relation of Neochmia to Baihilda. 
263 
