No. 12. — A Collection of Birds from southwestern New Guinea (Merauke coast and inland). By Outeam Bangs and James L. Peters. This collection, a recent gift to the M. C. Z. by Dr. Thomas Barbour, was made by Thomas Jackson in 1920-1924, in the general region of Merauke, Dutch New Guinea. This region, opposite Cape York, is an interesting part of Papua as it has a strong Australian element in its bird-fauna. Several of the forms have apparently not been taken previously in New Guinea and others have been recorded from Merauke only by Van Oort (Nova Guinea, 1909). Unfortunately Jackson's collection contains very few small birds, and gives an impression that bird collecting was far from being a pri-mary consideration with him. His labels, written on paper of very poor quality, twisted about the leg, and sometimes from dampness or some such cause disintegrated entirely, left the specimen with only a fragment of paper on the leg. Such specimens are listed "no data." There were no field-notes accompanying-the collection, except that a few labels have notations such as " very common," " very scarce," " legs black" and sometimes the total length is given in inches. Neither is there any itinerary. The spelling of geographic names on the labels does not always coincide with those on current maps; for instance Mapi is written "Mapia"; "EUinder" River we take to be Eilenden; "Edrich" Edric; and "Myjoie" River we have been unable to inter-pret, though judging from the dates of collection, it is doubtless a tributary of the Upper Digul; the " Wendoe Mer" River probably is near Merauke. In the case o£ some of the species we were unable to determine defi-nitely the subspecies owing to altogether inadequate material from Australia, particularly from Northwest Territory and Cape York. These Dr. Ernst Hartert most kindly compared at Tring, where the Mathews Collection is, and has sent very full notes on his results. Without this generous cooperation it would have been impossible to settle a number of cases.
BioStor
