Page:The Emu volume 21.djvu/87

From Wikisource
Jump to navigation Jump to search
This page needs to be proofread.
Vol. XXI 1921 ]
CARTER, Notes on Some Australian Birds.
55

least Point D'Entrecasteaux, to my own knowledge, and it is to be hoped they may long continue to do so, but the constant burning off of the coastal scrub, and the increase of grazing stock, must eventually drive them away. They also breed in numbers on the south coast, east of Albany, and in the Ma'lock and other scrub country north of that coast. Accompanying Mr. Milligan's interesting paper in The Emu, vol. ii., p. 76, is a photo reproduction of himself standing at a Leipoa's nest near Ellensbrook. When I was in that district in 1919 I had proofs of this species still breeding in several localities in the South-West corner of Western Australia. Page 131. Both the Grey-rumped Sandpiper (Heteractitis brevipes) and the common Sandpiper (Actitis hypoleucus) are regular visitors to the western coasts of Australia, see my notes in The Emu, vol. iii., p. 177; Ibis, 1920, pp. 697-8; Alexander in The Emu, vol. xvi., p. 42, etc.

The Red-winged Wren-Warbler (Malurus elegans) occurs, to my knowledge, at Gingin (about 150 miles south of Dongara), and probably further north than that. It is a bird that likes the neighbourhood of swamps.

The Northern Yellow-banded Parrot (Barnardius occidentalis) is a good sub-species. It is plentiful about Carnarvon, and from there northwards to where the type was obtained. I fancy Mr. A. J. Campbell had a note in The Emu some years ago about the Geraldton form, but cannot trace it at present.[1] It is interesting as one works north to find the Yellow-collared Parrot (B. semitorquatus) gradually merging into occidentalis.

The sub-species, B. woohindra (Mathews' Bulletin B.O.C., vol. xl., 1920, p. 44), collected by me in 1919, comes between the above two forms.

If Ptilotis geraldtonensis, the Geraldton Honeyeater, proves to be a new species, it is exceedingly interesting. There seems to be some confusion about the forms of Ptilotis (Meliphaga) found in the Geraldton district. Milligan (The Emu, Vol. IV., p. 152) gives the approximate southern range of Ptilotis carteri as about Yandanooka, 75 miles south-east of Geraldton, and in the same paper records Yellow-fronted Honeyeater (Ptilotis plumula) from near Day Dawn. Mr Milligan also has a note in the same Emu, p. 51, on Ptilotis carteri. In the Ibis, 1902, p. 183, Mr. R. Hall gives details of three specimens of the Pallid Honeyeater (Ptilotis leilavalensis) obtained at Geraldton. I have never collected specimens in that district, but when at Mullewa in 1904 I saw many of what appeared to me to be Ptilotis carteri.

Page 134. Was the White-browed Babbler (Pomatostomus superciliosus) observed at Geraldton, the larger S.W. form,

  1. See "Nests and Eggs" (Campbell), p. 643— Eds.