58 NESTS AND EGGS OF THREE SPECIES OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS 



by no means common on the Herbert River, Mr. Boyd has been 

 unable to grant my request for a pair shot at the nest. He has, 

 however, forwarded a fledgehng, which was captured by a Kanaka 

 girl on the plantation on the 26th of November, 1895. This 

 specimen is almost similar in the character of its markings to the 

 fully adult G. rvfescens, but it is darker in colour, and the rufous 

 centres of the feathers on the upper surface are broader and of a 

 deeper tint than in the adult; wings and tail dark brown; all the 

 under sui'face light rufous, the feathers on the lower neck edged 

 and tipped with blackish-brown ; total length 8 '5 inches, wing 

 4"5, tail 2"8, bill 1*4, tarsus 1'5. I have not seen the young of 

 C. qtioyi, but it is described in the Catalogue of Birds in the 

 British Museum* as being smoky-black. Upon the authority of 

 Mr. Broadbent, and the late Mr. F. H. Boyer-Bower, Mr. De Vis 

 and Dr. Sharpe respectively agree in describing the sexes of C. 

 rufescens, as being nearly alike in colour. Why a Rufous and a 

 Black Crow-Shrike should be always seen together, if not a sexual 

 distinction of one species, is a mystery to me, and i look forward 

 to our energetic member, Mr. Boyd, to solve it.f 



2. Sphenura broadbenti, McCoy. 

 Rufous-headed Bristle-bird. 



This fine Bristle-bird was discovered in 1858 in a dense scrub 

 about twenty-four miles from Portland Bay, Victoria, by Mr. 

 Kendal Broadbent, who presented a single example of it to the 

 National Museum, Melbourne. It was first described by Sir 

 Frederick McCoy in the Annals and Magazine of Natural History 

 in March, 1867, who named it in honour of its discoverer. Sub- 



* Gadow, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus. Vol. viii. p. 95 (1883). 

 t Since the above was sent to press, Mr. W. S. Day, who has been col- 

 lecting in the neighbourliood of Cairns for the past seven years, writes me 

 as follows : " Crarlim.^ rufescem^ is fairly common at Riverstone, sixteen 

 miles inland from Cairns. I have shot a lot of them, but got very few on 

 top of the range. The female is always brown and so is the young male, 

 but the old male is black." 



