Zosterops luteus, Gould, in Proc. of Zool. Soc.
This new species is an inhabitant of the northern portion of Australia. “I first met with it,” says Mr. Gilbert, “in August, on Greenhill Island, Van Diemen’s Gulf, dwelling among the mangroves or the densest thickets. It is much more wild and solitary than Zosterops dorsalis, and does not resort like that bird to the gardens and the neighbourhood of the houses of the settlers; its note is also very different, being a pretty canary-like song, instead of the long drawn-out note of Z. dorsalis. When disturbed it usually left the thicket for the higher branches of the gum-trees, where it was effectually hidden from view by the thick foliage. It was generally met with in small families of from three to seven or eight in number.”
All the upper surface olive-yellow; primaries and tail-feathers brown, margined with olive-yellow; forehead and throat pure yellow; lores and line beneath the eye black; eye encircled with a zone of white feathers; abdomen and under tail-coverts dull yellow; irides light reddish brown; upper mandible blackish grey, the basal half rather lighter; apical third of the lower mandible blackish grey; basal two-thirds light ash-grey; legs and feet bluish grey.
The figures are of the natural size.
CUCULUS OPTATUS: Gould.
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith. Hullmandel & Walton Imp.
CUCULUS OPTATUS, Gould.
Australian Cuckoo.
Cuculus optatus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part XIII. p. 18.
It is no less remarkable than true, that when we are in countries far distant from that which gave us birth, our minds are strongly disposed to seize upon any objects presenting associations connected with our native land; whatever reminds us of our own country becomes immediately interesting, and its productions acquire a triple value. By the colonists of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, a stripling oak or an elm, a violet or a primrose are regarded as treasures; and a caged blackbird or lark is more prized than a bird of paradise would be here; how welcome then to the settlers will be this Cuckoo, when the part of Australia in which it is found becomes inhabited by Englishmen! Here, as in Europe, it is the harbinger of spring, and an index of the revivifying of nature, and its voice will be heard with even greater sensations of pleasure than was that of its representative in Europe.
I think I hear my readers remark, “Surely this is the true Cuckoo of Europe; and if so, why give it a new name?” To this I may answer, that I can trace distinctions, which in my opinion warrant me in stating the Australian bird to be a distinct species; specific characters, which, although appearing very trivial to the general observer, are so apparent to the ornithologist, that he can always distinguish an Australian specimen from one killed in Europe. In the Australian bird the black bands on the breast are broader and more defined than in the European, and in the former a light fawn tint pervades the abdomen, which part is white in the latter; the claws of the Australian bird are also smaller and more delicate than those of its northern ally; the breast, neck and head of the immature Australian bird are more broadly and distinctly barred with black and white, while the rufous tint which pervades the body of the immature European Cuckoo is almost, if not wholly, wanting.