XVIII.—<i>On the Birds of Inkerman Station, North Queensland</i>

Abstract

Australia -where lie had been making exhaustive collections of birds and mamna^ls -to Inkerman, another cattle-station belonging to the same owners in North Queensland.Before describing the excellent series of birds procured at the latter place, I had hoped to be able to supplement my first paper (' Ibis/ 1907, p. 387) by the description of a further consignment of skins from Alexandra ; but although the case containing them was dispatched more than eighteen months ago, owing to floods and other hindrances it has not yet reached its destination.The Inkerman collection is very extensive, and no fewer than ninety-three species are represented in it, of which two (Neositta maynirostris and Sphecotheres stalkeri) are new to science.Unfortunately Mr. Stalker has not supplied us with even a rough description of the locality in which he worked ; but as I spent a fortnight at this station when in Australia some years ago, I am to a certain extent able to remedy this omission from my own journal.However, as I was there towards the end of an exceptionally long and severe drought, I probably saw the country under somewhat different conditions, while the phenomenal aridity no doubt explained the extreme paucity of bird-life noticed at the time of my visit.Whether Mr. Stalker purposely refrained from collecting the larger birds I do not know, but when I was at Inkerman in July and early August 1902, it was certainly the large forms that were then most commonly encountered -indeed, the locality seemed to be almost entirely deserted by the smaller passerine species.It may perhaps be of interest to enumerate here the few birds observed by me and not procured by Mr. Stalker.Inherman Station.North Queensland.