"McNicoll's Long-Tailed

Bird of Paradise"

From a Special Correspondent

Rabaul, Jan. 20.

AS is usually the case when some new specimens come before the public eye, there is some controversy arising as to whom honour is due for discovering the long, white-tailed Bird of Paradise, which has been classified by the Aus tralian Museum as “Taeniaparadisea macnicolli”. The discoverers are named, according to the “Australian Zoologist” as Messrs. Taylor and Black, of the Mount Hagen-Sepik patrol.

As already stated in the “P.1.M.” (Janu ary issue) a bird of this description was reported by the late Jack Hides (Papuan Service) in May, 1935; by Ivan Champion (Papuan Service) in 1938; and was re ferred to in correspondence between the Natural History Department of Brit ish Museum and Sir Hubert Murray in December, 1938.

New Guinea residents knew nothing of this new specimen from their own terri tory until reports appeared in the South ern press. Reports now state that several cases of rare specimens of bird-life, col lected on the Hagen-Sepik patrol, were

despatched to an Australian Museum, where presumably they will be placed on exhibition.

New Guinea gets nothing but the debit note for the patrol, and that runs into many thousands. Incidentally, some very fine photographic records were obtained on the patrol; but of these, also, we know nothing. Time, possibly, may reveal them in some form or other.

Assuming that the zoologist, Mr. King horn, is aware of all classifications of ornithological specimens, it is safe to say that neither Hides nor the collector.

Shaw Mayer, furnished the data necessary to allow this long-tailed Bird of Paradise to be officially classified. So, actually, there can be no objection to the credit, for supplying this data, going to Taylor and Black. The latter are officers of the service of which Sir Walter McNicoll is the head, and it seems fitting that the name of our scholarly Administrator should be perpetuated in the ornitho logical history of New Guinea.