AVES. 
By ALFRED J. NORTH, F.LS., Ornithologist to the Australian 
Museum, Sydney, with Field Notes by G. A. Keartland. 
(Plates 5 , 6 and 7 ). 
Professor W. Baldwin Spencer, of the University of Melbourne, has kindly 
sent me for examination a collection of Central Australian bird-skins, beautifully 
prepared by Mr. G. A. Keartland, one of the members of the Horn Expedition. 
The collection is an extremely important one as regards the geographical distribu¬ 
tion of species, and contains examples of seventy-eight species, of which five 
are new to science. The majority of the birds collected range over the southern 
half of the Australian continent from east to west, but there is a slight prepon¬ 
derance of western forms. Several north-western species are now recorded for the 
first time from Central Australia; but it is worthy of note that no strictly 
northern species is represented in the collection. 
Although new species of Central Australian birds have been obtained at 
various times, the present collection is the most important one formed since 
Captain Sturt’s, in 1839. From an ornithological point of view, the results of the 
E.xpedition are highly gratifying and satisfactory, especially when it is taken 
into consideration that the journey was made during a somewhat dry season, 
and rapid travelling left but little time for thorough investigation. It is very 
evident, however, that much has still to be done before our knowledge of the avi¬ 
fauna of Central Australia is anything like conaplete; and that vast area, 
comparatively untrodden by the ornithological collector, will for many years otler 
the richest and most tempting field for future research in Australia. 
That the interior possesses a great attraction to an enthusiastic worker and 
observer is verified by the fact that since the above lines were written Px’ofessor 
Baldwin Spencer has again undertaken a journey of more than two thousand miles 
during the mid-summer vacation “to secure certain forms of animals only obtainable 
after a heavy rainfall in the central desert region, and to observe the change in 
the nature of the country at such a season.”* On the occasion of this visit the 
* Baldwin Spencer, Vict. Nat., vol. xi., p. 15S (1895). 
