untimely death is a real cause of regret to every one who is interested 
in the sciences which he cultivated with equarardour and success. 
The collection in question was remarkable for the extreme beauty 
of the preparations, as well as for the rarity and interest of the spe¬ 
cies of which it was chiefly composed. 
Malurus amabilis. 
Male: Head, ear-coverts and centre of the hack delicate violet- 
blue ; lores, throat, breast, crescent across the upper part of the hack 
and the rump deep bluish black ; scapularies chestnut; wings brown, 
the secondaries slightly margined with white; abdomen white, very 
slightly tinged with buff on the flanks; tail dull greenish blue, the 
four lateral feathers margined externally and largely tipped with white; 
bill black ; irides and feet dark brown. 
Total length, 5|- inches; bill, ^; wing, 2; tail, 2f; tarsi, 
Hah. Cape York, Northern Australia. 
Remark. —This species is nearly allied to Malurus Lamberti, M. 
elegans , and M. pulcherrimus, but differs from them all in having 
the lateral tail-feathers distinctly margined and tipped with white, 
and in having a lighter-coloured abdomen. I consider it to be the 
most beautiful species of the genus yet discovered; the only example 
I have seen is in the collection of this Society. 
* 
Family Muscicapid-e? 
Genus Mach-erirhynchus. 
Gen. Char .—Bill rather shorter than the head, very much de¬ 
pressed and widely dilated, causing it to assume a lancet-like form ; 
culmen elevated, forming a distinct ridge down the centre of the 
upper mandible, and continued over its extremity in the form of a 
sharp hook ; under mandible convex ; tomiee straight, the upper very 
slightly overlapping the lower ; rictus beset with fine but stiff bristles*; 
nostrils oblong, partly covered with an operculum, and seated in large 
and deep depressions occupying the basal half of the upper mandible; 
wings short and somewhat rounded, the first quill very short, the 
second much shorter than the third, the fifth the longest*; tail mode¬ 
rate in length, distinctly graduated, the outer feather being little more 
than halt the length of the central ones ; tarsi moderate in length 
and slight in structure; toes feeble, particularly the anterior ones; 
the two outer toes equal in length, and united from the base to the 
first joint; hind toe rather long; claws hooked and very sharp. 
Mach^erirhynchus flaviventer. (Aves, PI. XXXIII.) 
Crown of the head, lores, ear-coverts, wings and tail black, the 
wing-coverts tipped with white ; the secondaries margined with white, 
and the outer tail-feathers margined on the apical portion of the ex¬ 
ternal web and largely tipped with white, the white becoming less and 
less, until only a slight trace of it is found on the central feathers; 
back olive-black ; throat white ; line from the nostrils over each eye. 
