Page:The Emu volume 21.djvu/239

 Official Organ of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union

"Birds of a feather."

Cinclosoma alisteri (Mathews) Black-Throated Ground-Bird

By A. J. CAMPBELL, C.M.B.O.U., F.A.O.U.

Mr. H. L. White, C.M.B.O.U., C.F.A.O.U., who again most liberally bears the expense of this beautiful plate by Mr. Neville W. Cayley, R.A.O.U., has requested me to supply the letterpress.

On the "Provisional List" of the R.A.O.U. Official Check-list, p. 103, is the name "Cinclosoma alisteri, Mathews. Black-breasted Ground-Bird." The original description (♂) is found in Bulletin B.O.U., xvii., p. 16 (1910).

For over a decade this description has stood unique until Mr. F. L. Whitlock, collecting for Mr. H. L. White, recently took a fine series of similar skins at the western end of the Nullarbor Plain, Western Australia. Mr. Mathews' description is accurate save the coloration of the upper surface, which is auburn, not chestnut as described by Mr. Mathews, who also does not mention a conspicuous, elongated, white patch on the malar region, or side of the neck, and again, the bird is more black-throated than black-breasted, as the vernacular name describes it in his "1913 List" (p. 198). Should these three marked differences not agree with Mr. Mathews' type, then I venture to suggest the name nullarborensis for the bird represented on the present plate, in case it be different. But for the time being, we shall treat the interesting species as C. alisteri.

Adult Male. — Upper surface from forehead to elongated tail coverts, and including ear-coverts, and side of neck auburn; wing-coverts and primary coverts black, tipped with white; secondaries mummy-brown, margined with cinnamon-rufous, some wholly, or on inner webs crimson-rufous; primaries mummy-brown with paler edges, especially third to sixth quills, which are margined with pinkish-buff towards the base; tail feathers clove-brown to blackish-brown, except the central pair,