118 



CAMPOPHAGIDiE. 



loner hack, rump, and upper tail-coverts light grey ; tail black, the three outermost feathers tipped 

 tvith white : cheeks, car-coverts, sides of the neck, all the under surface, and under tail and under 

 wing-coverts pure white ; bill and legs black ; iris dark broivn. Total length in the flesh 7 inches, 

 wing 4, tail 3, bill 0-53, tarsus OS. 



Adult female — General colour above brown, the feathers of the head with dusky centres; quills 

 broivn, the upper wing-coverts and outer webs of the secondaries margined with buff: tail broivn, 

 the lateral Jeathers tipped with dull white; a line in front and behind the eye blackisli-hroivn ; an 

 indistinct eye-brow huffy-white; chin, throat, and centre of tlie abdomen dull white: remainder of 

 the under surface buffy-w/tite, with indistinct dusky-brown crossbars on the sides of the breast and 

 body : under tail-coverts white, slightly tinged with buff; bill dark brown, basal portion of lower 

 mandible yellowish-liorn colour; legs and feet greyish-black ; iris dark brown. Total length in the 

 flesh 7 inches, wing 3-9, tail 3, bill 0-52, tarsus OS. 



Distribution. — All the Australian States, South-eastern New Guinea. 



fN suitable situations the present species is found, in one season or another, in nearly 

 every part of the Australian continent. In Eastern New South Wales these birds 

 are strictly migratory, arriving in the neighbourhood of Sydney, generally during the first 

 week in September, remaining to breed, and accompanied by their young, departing again in 

 February. In 1898 they left Canterbury, where they were very numerous, on the 14th 

 January, but this was earlier than usual. In Western New South Wales, the late Mr. 



K. H. Bennett obtained at Moolah two immature 

 males, one in June, the other in July of 1883. Mr. 

 George Masters procured a nearly adult male in .\ugust, 

 at Gayndah, in Queensland, and also obtained speci- 

 mens at King George's Sound, Western Australia, in 

 November. A number of young birds were met with 

 by the members of the Calvert Exploring Expedition 

 in the same State, near Lake Way, in July, 1896; 

 ^:^ ->,^ a^j^Mf//Mg and. later on, Mr. G. A. Keartland found them breeding 



,j\. ■^ ^^^aB^m^^^m close to the Fitzroy River in North-western Australia, 



in February. Examples were also obtained in 1886 in 

 the same neighbourhood by Mr. E. J. Cairn and the 

 late Mr. T. H. Bowyer-Bower, I have specimens in 

 immature or adult plumage now before me from all 

 parts of the continent except Central Australia. It 

 w-as probably due to there being a drought in Central 

 Australia in 1894 that this species was not met with by 

 the Horn Scientific Expedition. During a trip made in 

 South Australia by Dr. A. M. Morgan, in July and August, 1900, he observed two immature 

 males at Elizabeth Creek, about one hundred and twenty miles north-west of Port Augusta. 



The wing-measurement of adult males varies from 3-85 inches to 4-1 inches. By a 

 typographical error in the " Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,"- the wing and tail 

 measurement of the adult male of Lalage tricolor is there represented as exceeding the measure- 

 ments of the same parts in L. leucomela. 



On the highlands of the Miison's Point railway-line, near Sydney, it is worthy of note that 

 this species does not make its appearance until nearly a month later than it does in the western 

 suburbs of Ashfield and Canterbury. These birds generally return to the same haunts year after 



WHITE-SHOULDERED CATERPILLAR-EATER. 



• Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. iv., p. 92 (1869). 



