Page:The Emu volume 18.djvu/346

 2'>4 Campbell, Additions to " H. L. White Collection." [isfA^rii Further Notes on Additions to the ** H. L. White Collection.'^ By A. J. Campbell, C.M.B.O.U., Melbourne. (Continued from Emu, ante, p. 2.) There is no abatement of Mr. H. L. White's enterprise to foster ornithological exploration. Last year he again commissioned Mr. F. Lawson Whitlock to visit the Dampier Archipelago, North- West Australia, and on the return journey to touch at Shark Bay district, including the historic island of Dirk Hartog. The bird-skins collected are now in the " H. L. White Collection," National Museum, Melbourne, where, most fortunately, they can be examined by students. The specimens include a particularly fine series — indeed, the best extant — of the Black-and-Wliite Malurus, from both Barrow and Dirk Hartog Islands — the only known habitats of these birds. Mr. Whitlock's own account of the Dampier Archipelago appears in another part of this issue (pp. 240-253), while, regarding Dirk Hartog Island, he writes under date 16/11/18 : — " I could not, for several reasons, remain on Dirk Hartog for any length of time, lack of communication with the mainland being one. I did not wish to be stranded there and miss the monthly boat going south. I was really too late for the best work when I landed on the island. The breeding season evidently commences there early — I should say about the end of June * in normal seasons. " Dirk Hartog is clothed with innumerable bushes of many species. There is just room to walk around each clump, so you will easily realize it is a country requiring close and systematic search to do the thing thoroughly. Birds, for the most part, were in moult ; they skulk under such circumstances. " I saw one pair only of Amytornis, but, despite much time devoted, I could not get a shot. The strong winds are a difficulty in Shark Bay. They keep the climate wonderfully cool, but, once a bird takes to a big bush when the wind blows it is im- possible to follow a bird with the eye. " I worked the Peron Peninsula for three weeks, and secured Malurus cyanotns, two species of Acanthiza, &c., and fired at a venture at what I thought was an Amytornis just as it was disappearing into a bush, and was delighted to pick up a fine female. . . Shark Bay requires a whole season to work the district thoroughly, the areas to be examined are so extensive." Mr. Thomas Carter, M.B.O.U., contributed a valuable article to The Ibis for October, 1917, on " The Birds of Dirk Hartog Island and Peron Peninsula, Shark Bay, Western Australia,"! the result of two trips — April and May, and from October, 1916, the breeding season for the smaller birds had finished about the end of May. — Vide Emu, xii., p. 287. t Briefly noticed in Emu, ante, p. 60.
 * When Mr. Otto Lipfert visited Beinier and Dorre Islands, 1910, he found that