IN T R O D U C T IO N .
our knowledge of Australian Birds is the discovery of a fine species of Cassowary in the rich
colony of Queensland, a district in which have also been found many other interesting species,
such as Tanysiptera Sylvia, Pitta Mackloti, Orthonyx Spaldingi, and the beautiful Ptiloris
magnifica. Western and Southern Australia have presented us with the extraordinary Geo-
psittacus occidentalis; Northern Australia is no less conspicuous in her novelties, since it is the
home of the lovely Malurus coronatus, as the central portion of the country is of the Polytelis
Alexandra, and the south-eastern coast of the Menura Alberti.
As in the preceding seven volumes, so also in this Supplement, I have not strictly
confined myself to the ornithological productions of Australia and its islands, hut have given
figures and descriptions of some few birds from other, but not distant localities, which appeared
to me of surpassing interest; as instances in point, I may cite among others the inclusion in
the former volumes of the extraordinary Didunculus of the Samoan Islands and the two species
of Apteryx (A. Australis and A. Oiveni) of New Zealand, and in the present volume some
equally interesting novelties from the latter country, such as Sceloglaux albifacies, Nestor
JEsslingi, N. notabilis, Strigops habroptilus, and the now nearly extinct Notomis Mantelli. A
few new birds from Lord Howe’s and Norfolk Island are also figured for the first time ; while
the countries northward of those islands are represented by two important struthious birds, the
Casuarius Bennettii and C. uniappendiculatus, of which I could not resist the temptation to give
figures, more especially as opportunities occurred for delineating them from life; by which
means their heads have been represented of the natural size, and the colouring of their soft
parts with strict fidelity, which could not otherwise have been done.
Note.—Mr. James Cockerell, who has spent two or three seasons in the Cape-York district, believes that
my Malurus amabilis and M. hypoleucus are male and female of the same species, for he has seen and shot them
in company many times—the M. amabilis being the male, and M. hypoleucus the female. If this should prove to
be the case, it will be contrary to what I have hitherto believed to be an invariable law with these birds ; for I
have always supposed the females of the variegated Maluri, like the Common Superb Warbler ( Malurus cyaneus'),
to be of a nearly uniform brown, that the males have a breeding and non-breeding attire, and that in the latter
dress their appearance is very similar to that of the females. If Mr. Cockerell’s opinion be correct, then both
males and females of the Cape-York bird will carry in winter the kind of plumage shown in my figure of M. hypoleucus
on the 22nd Plate of this Supplement.
August 1st, 1869.