Notes on two small collections of Birds from new Guinea

INTRODUCTION Over the past few years the Rijksmuseum van Natuurlijke Historie has received, from different sources, several small collections of birds from various parts of New Guinea. This is a report on two of these. No ornithologist accompanied the expedition to the Sterren-gebergte (Star Mountains) of 1959, under the leadership of Dr. L. D. Brongersma and Captain (Air) G. F. Venema (Brongersma & Venema, 1960), but the mammal preparator Mr. J. J. Staats obtained a collection of some 120 bird skins. The majority of these are from the highlands in the Sterren-gebergte area, but a few specimens were collected in the lowlands near Hollandia and Tanahmerah. All localities with their approximate altitudes are listed and most of them are shown on the accompanying map. Though the collection is small, and doubtless gives a very incomplete picture of the bird-life in the Sterren-gebergte, it is important as the first collection ever made in the area, so that it fills a gap in the known distribution of a number of species. Most birds obtained in the Sterren-gebergte belong to widely distributed species and races, but it is interesting to note that of two species which have well-differentiated eastern and western subspecies, Peneothello sigillatus and Paramythia montium, the birds from the Sterren-gebergte belong to the eastern race and show no approach to the western subspecies. In a third case, Rhamphocharis crassirostris, I have felt justified in describing the Sterren-gebergte population as a new subspecies, more or less intermediate between known eastern and western races. The second collection, consisting of one hundred skins, was purchased in