The Plate represents an adult male and female of the natural size. [Illustration: CENTROPUS PHASIANUS. _J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _Hullmandel & Walton Imp._ ] CENTROPUS PHASIANUS. Pheasant Cuckoo. _Cuculus Phasianus_, Lath. Ind. Orn. Supp., p. xxx. _Centropus Phasianus_, Temm. Man. d’Orn., tom. i. p. lxxiv.—Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 306. _Polophilus Phasianus_, Leach, Zool. Misc., pl. 46.—Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. ix. p. 48. pl. 11. _Pheasant Cuckoo_, Lath. Gen. Syn. Supp., vol. ii. p. 137.—Ib. Gen. Hist., vol. iii. p. 240. _Polophilus leucogaster_, Leach, Zool. Misc., vol. i. p. 177. pl. 52.—Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. ix. p. 49. pl. 12. _New Holland Coucal_, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. iii. p. 250. _Polophilus variegatus_, Leach, Zool. Misc., vol. i. pp. 116, 117. pl. 51.—Shaw, Gen. Zool., vol. ix. p. 47. pl. 10. _Variegated Coucal_, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. iii. p. 250. _Centropus variegatus_, Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 306. _Mun-j̏e-ree-woo_, Aborigines of Port Essington. Perhaps there is no one group of the Australian Birds less understood than the members of the genus _Centropus_. The numerous examples in my collection I consider to be referable to two, if not to three distinct species, presenting, however, but slight differences from each other. The _Centropus_ inhabiting New South Wales differs from that found at Port Essington in having a much shorter and more arched bill, and in being somewhat smaller in size; specimens from the western coast again differ in being smaller than the bird of New South Wales, in having a more attenuated bill and a more uniform colouring of the tail: having thus pointed out the particulars in which the birds differ from each other, it will only be necessary to figure one of them. The old term of _Phasianus_ should be retained for the New South Wales bird, while that of _macrourus_ might be applied to the one from Port Essington, and _melanurus_ to that from North-Western Australia, should they ultimately prove to be distinct. The greater part then of the coast-line of New South Wales, the eastern, northern and north-western portions of Australia generally are tenanted by _Centropi_, but only in such situations as are favourable to their habits, namely swampy places among the brushes abounding with tall grasses and dense herbage, among which they run with facility, and when necessity prompts, fly to the lower branches of the trees, from which they ascend in a succession of leaps from branch to branch until they nearly reach the top, and then they fly off to a neighbouring tree. The most westerly part of New South Wales in which I have heard of their existence is Illawarra, where they are rather rare, and from whence to Moreton Bay they gradually increase in numbers.