138 MUSCICAPID.E. 



/"I^HIS species, inhabiting chiefly the northern and north-western portions of the continent, 

 -L is similar in colour to Sisura inquida, but is decidedly smaller, and does not intergrade 

 with the latter. Gould, in the original description, gives the wing measurement of the type as 

 3^ inches. The wing measurement of two adult females, procured at Derby, North-western 

 Australia, by the late JVIr. T. H. Bowyer-Bower, is alike 3-4 inches; that of an adult male, 

 obtained by Mr. J. Ramsay, at Tyndarie, Western New South Wales, in 1882, is 3-5 inches. 

 The latter specimen is the only one I have seen from the southern portion of the continent, and 

 the bill is not so broad as in North-western .-Vustralian specimens. The examples from Derby 

 have their bills comparatively broader than typical specimens of Sisura inquida. 



An egg of Siiura nana, in the collection of Mr. Chas. French, Junr., taken near the Daly 

 River in the Northern Territory of South Australia in January, 1902, is oval in form, the shell 

 being close-grained, smooth, and lustreless. It is of a dull buflFy-white ground colour, irregularly 

 spotted and blotched with umber-brown, and similar underlying markings of greyish-lilac, which 

 form an irregular band around tlic larger end. Length: — 0-71 x 0-5 inches. 



<3-en"U.S -if^ISSES, Lesson. 



Arses kaupi. 



K.\LPS FLYCATCHER 

 Arses kaupi, Gou\A, Proc. Zool. Soc, 18.50, p. 278; id., Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol, I., p. 2.tI (186;")); id., 

 Bds. Austr, fol, Suppl., pi. 10 (1869); Sharpe, Oat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. IV., p. 411 (1879). 



Adult .malk — Lores, croum of the head and nape, feathers helow the eye, and the ear-coverts 

 rich bluish-black ; a broad collar on the hind-neck pure tvhite ; mantle and upper portion 0/ the back 

 glossy bluish-black: scapulars, feathers of the lower portion of the back and the rump irhite with 

 black bases; upper lail-coverts black; ivings and tail black: chin, cheeks, and throat pure white; a 

 broad band across the breast glossy bluisli black; abdomen and under tail-coverts ivhite ; bill bluish- 

 horn colour at the base, lighter at the tip; feet leaden-black ; orbital u-attle dark blue. Total length 

 6 inches, wing 3'15, tail 3, bill 4, tarsus 75. 



Adult female— Z)u//er in, colour than the male; wings and tail brownish-black; the chin and 

 upper throat only tnhite, and not connected with the broad white band on the hind-neck, which has 

 most of the feathers narrowly edged at the lip with black. 



Distribution. — North-eastern Queensland. 



^"I^HE two species of Frill-necked Flycatchers inhabiting .\ustralia are doubtless of 

 -JL- Papuan derivative, for their range is exclusively confined to that portion of the 

 continent in which is also found so many representatives of the Papuan flora. The habitat of 

 the present species extends throughout the greater portion of that tropical belt extending from 

 Cape York as far south as the Herbert River. Judging by the numerous specimens in the 

 collection obtained by Messrs. Cairn and Grant in the Bellenden Ker Range, it is apparently 

 freely distributed towards its southern limits, where the late Mr. Edward Spalding procured 

 adults and young in the brushes of the Herbert River in 1874. During the stay of the 

 "Chevert" Expedition at Cape York, in 1875, Mr. George Masters succeeded in obtaining 

 one specimen, the only one seen. 



In habits it differs from the typical members of the family Muscicapida, in resorting to the 

 trunks and branches of trees from which it procures most of its food after the manner of the 

 Certhiida, its long claws and powerful hind-toe being admirably adapted for the purpose. 



The long crested feathers on the nape are not shown in Gould's two figures of the male, 

 in his Supplement to the " Birds of Australia." Some adult males have a small black spot on 

 the chin, as represented in Gould's figures, but as a rule it is absent. 



