130 MUSCICAPID.E. 



the 27th December, 1902, I observed a female building in the next tree to the one from which 

 the nest and eggs figured were taken the previous year, the tail-like appendage and base of the 

 structure alone being formed. A little lower down the creek, and a few yards away from the 

 opposite bank, was a completed nest containing a single fresh egg. On another creek I found 

 a nest built in a tree overhanging the water, and in it two nearly fledged young. This nest 

 was about two feet from the surface of the water, and was devoid of the usual tail -like termina- 

 tion beneath the structure. 



As I have previously pointed out, the Rufous-fronted Fantail is one of the foster-parents 

 of the Square-tailed Cuckoo. I found a nest at Ourimbah, on the 24th November, 1899, in a 

 low tree about twenty yards from a creek, on which the female was sitting, containing a young 

 Square-tailed Cuckoo; beneath the nest, which was four feet from the ground, I found a perfect 

 egg of Rhipidiira ru/ifyons, with the yolk dried hard up in it. 



Rhipidura intermedia. 



.ALLIED FANTAIL. 

 Rhipidura inte.rtwilia, North, Vict. Nat, Vol. XIX., p. 101 (I'.iOl'). 



Adult male — Like the adull male o/' Rhipidura rufiprons, hut dislinyuished from that species 

 by the less extent of orange-rufous on the basal Italf of the tail-feathers, t/ie terminal half being 

 blaekish-hrotvn, arid distinctly tipped rvith n'hite: by the narroiver black band on the lower throat, 

 the less scale-like appearance of tlie featliers on the fore-neck, and the centre of the breast arid abdomen 

 being white, the latter ivashed on the sides with pale fawn-buff; sides of tlie breast ashy-brotvn; 

 under tail coverts pale fairti colour : bill dark brown, yellowish horn colour at the base of the lower 

 mandible: legs and feet brown. Total lengtli 5 'J inches, wing 29, tail 33, hill()'32; tarsus 7. 

 Adult female — Similar in plumage to the male. 

 Distribution. — North-eastern Queensland. 

 /"■"(^HE present species is an inhabitant of the scrubs of the Bellenden Ker and Sea- view 

 JL Ranges in North-eastern Queensland. I have never seen it from any other part of that 

 State, but doubtless its range e.xtends throughout the entire belt of rich tropical vegetation 

 found in the central portion of the coastal districts of North-eastern Queensland, lying between 

 Cardwell and the Endeavour River. It cannot be strictly regarded as the northern represen- 

 tative of R. rufifrons, for during the "Chevert" Expedition, in 1875, Mr. George Masters 

 obtained typical examples of that species at Cape York. 



Dr. Sharpe's description of Rhipidura rufifrons, in the " Catalogue of Birds in the British 

 Museum,"" evidently applies to this species, for he describes the tail feathers as being 

 "distinctly tipped with white." The type of R. rufifrons, characterised by Dr. Latham, was 

 obtained in New South Wales, and has the tips of the tail feathers pale brown, not white. 

 In the latter respect R. intermedia agrees with R. torrida, described and figuredt by Dr. 

 Alfred Russel Wallace, from the island of Ternate, but R. torrida differs from R. intermedia 

 in having the ear-coverts and upper breast black. 



Many specimens of Rhipidura intermedia were obtained by Messrs. Cairn and Grant while 

 collecting on behalf of the Trustees of the Australian Museum, in North-eastern Queensland, 

 from the vicinity of Cairns, and upon the highest peaks of the Bellenden Ker Range. 



The eggs are indistinguishable from those of its ally A', rufifrons, being oval in form, of 

 a pale cream ground colour, and slightly darker at the larger end, where they are dotted and 

 spotted with dull umber-brown, intermingled with a few underlying spots of faint bluish-grey. 

 A set of two measures: — Length (A) 0-69 x 0-52 inches; (B) o-68 x 0-49 inches. 



♦ Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. iv., p. 319 (1879). 

 t Proc. Zool. Soc, 1865, p. 477. 



