THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
oil-green, and by the broad and much more lengthened flank-feathers which 
show very conspicuously.” 
This form was reduced to subspeciflc rank by Rothschild some years 
ago, when the practice of depreciating all representative species was iu vogue. 
I accepted that value and it has been so listed by me to the present, but an 
unprejudiced judgment of the characters unhesitatingly compels me to give it 
full specific rank. 
This will apparently be accepted, as Campbell and Barnard indicated their 
recognition of the species when they recorded from the Rocldngham Bay district: 
“ The Victoria Rifle-Bird holds its own in fastnesses of the mountains, while 
one or twm were heard or seen in lower localities, but always in dense scrub. 
A goodly percentage of the glorious full-plumaged males was observed.” They 
quote Gould’s account above given, writing: “ Gould was a keen observer 
of species : Yet Mathews states the two birds are only subspecifically different.” 
Gould was a keen observer of geographical differences, which he called species, 
but knew that they were what we generally now term “ subspecies,” but in 
this instance the geographical difference I conclude is of specific value, though 
other workers, such as Rothschild, stUl regard it as of subspecific value only. 
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