Vol. XXIV. -1 
CHISHOLM, Fairy Warbler 
165 
from Yeppoon, and ten miles inland. For the most part it kept 
to the scrubs or the scrubby margins of creeks, but occasionally 
it would venture into open forest country. Then its song could 
be heard at the same time as that of the White-throated species. 
A third nest found was built in a scrub-bush near a creek. Here, 
again, the remarkable hood was pronounced; and here, too, the 
birds were consistent in lacking any trace of a dark throat. 
Prompted by the Yeppoon experience, I removed the two eggs 
from this nest—there was no wasps’ nest nearby—and, sure 
enough, found one of them to be the dark-bronze egg of a 
Bronze Cuckoo. Then Mr. Barnard and I secured a pair of 
the birds, each of which came readily to a call. Examination left 
no doubt that they were fully mature. 
Comparison with Mathews’ plate persuaded us that these speci¬ 
mens represented a new species—an opinion shared by Mr. Tom 
Iredale (who was associated with Mathews in his great work), 
when shown the skins at the Australian Museum, Sydney. But 
we both “suffered a recovery” on comparing the “new” birds with 
the Ramsay types of flavida. They agree almost precisely, the 
only difference being that the latest skins are slightly paler on the 
upper surface. This factor is probably due to the haunts of 
the southern bird being less dense than those of the Cardwell 
flavida, and is not, in my opinion, a sufficiently substantial basis 
even for a sub-species. 
But there can now be no doubt whatever as to the specific 
validity of the Fairy Warbler. Has it been consistently working 
southwards since its far-off separation from the Black-throated 
Warblers of the tropics? Or, conversely, is the dark throat a 
more recent development, showing that after the bird-waves of 
ages ago had subsided, the ripples returned northward — the 
throat-colour deepening under the influence of distance, time, 
and depth of vegetation, and reaching its fullest strength with 
birds in the scrap of land that is now the Aru Islands? 
The Australian Darter. —It is generally supposed that the 
Australian Darter is a fish-eating bird, and one having come to 
our little lake at Stawell, it was not long before it was shot. It 
fell to my lot to get it and mount it. I made a careful 
examination of the contents of the stomach, and to my surprise, 
there was not the least trace of fish of any description. The 
stomach contained only a number of worms, and about a table¬ 
spoonful of a moss which grows on the bottom’ of the lake. As 
fish abound in the lake, this was very remarkable, for the Darter 
could easily have caught them. Is the serrated bill used for 
cropping the moss, of which the Swans here are very fond? It 
is possible that the Darter is not a fish-eating bird (certainly this 
bird was not). Perhaps some of our readers may throw some 
light on this question. — J. A. Him,, R.A.O.U., Stawell, Vic. 
