154 MUSCICAPID.^. 



nest I have seen, measuring barely one inch and a half across, and is outwardly constructed of 

 small pieces of Bloodwood bark, held together with spider's web, the inside being neatly lined 

 with tea-tree bark. Only one egg is laid for a sitting. When we were living at ' Wyalla,' a 

 pair used to nest regularly in a Moreton Bay Ash, close to our house. This species usually 

 commences to breed in November." 



A nest of this species now before me, taken near Cooktown, on the 2nd January, igoo, is 

 built in the angle of a partially upright thin forked branch. It is a small shallow cup-shaped 

 structure, formed chiefly of fine strips and scales of bark, intermingled with a few short bits of 

 dried grass, and held together with spiders' webs; the rim, which is thick and rounded, and the 

 outer portion of the nest being covered with the latter material. Inside, it has no special lining 

 at the bottom, and to the exposed portions of the sides are attached several large pieces of the 

 white paper-like bark of a Melaleuca. Externally it measures one inch and three-quarters in 

 diameter, and its greatest depth one inch, the inner cup measuring one inch and an eighth in 

 diameter by half an inch in depth. The single egg it contained, which occupied nearly all the 

 available space inside the nest is oval in form, the shell being close-grained and its surface dull 

 and lustreless, the ground colour being of a very faint blue over which is evenly distributed 

 minute dots of pale purplish-red. Length: — 072 x 0-53 inches. 



O-enTJLS IS^OI>T.,^ISOi3:-A., Vigors & Horsfield. 



Monarcha melanopsis. 



BLACK-PACED FLYCATCHER. 



Muscicapa melanopsis, Vieill,, Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., torn. XXI., p 450 (1818). 



Monarcha carinata, Gould, Bds. Austr., fol.. Vol. II., pi. 9-") (1848); id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., 

 Vol. I., p. 262 (186.")). 



Monarcha melanopsis, Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mas., Vol. IV., p. 430 (1879); Salvad., Orn. Pap. et 

 Molucc, Pt. IL, p. 17 (1881). 

 Adult male — General colour above grey ; upper wing-coverts like the back; quills dark broivn, 

 externally margined with grey on their outer webs; tail feathers dark broivn ivashed with grey : a 

 ring of feathers round the eye, hand on the forehead, and lores black: feathers in front of the eye 

 ashy-white; chin and throat black; sides of lite neck and the chest grey ; remainder of the under 

 surface and under tail-coverts orange-buff : bill bluish-grey, paler at the tip : legs and feet bluish-lead 

 colour : iris black. Total length in thejlesh 7 inches, wing S'Sii, tail '2'9, hill 6, tarsus 0-75. 



Adult female — Similar to the male in plumage. 



Distribution. — Eastern Queensland, Eastern New South Wales, Eastern \'ictoria, New 

 Guinea. 



/"I^HE range of the Black-faced Flycatcher extends throughout the greater portion of the 

 -L coastal districts of Eastern .\ustralia, and South-eastern New Guinea. Temminck 

 states it has also been obtained in Timor. In North-eastern Queensland it is sparingly 

 distributed throughout the coastal scrubs and contiguous mountain ranges, but few specimens 

 being obtained near Cairns by Messrs. Cairn and Grant during their collecting expedition on 

 behalf of the Trustees of the Australian Museum. Examples from this district have slightly 

 narrower bills and the sides of the head are paler, and they are almost intermediate in 

 colour between Monarcha melmwpsis and the northern race M. canescens, inhabiting the Cape 

 York Peninsula. Further south, in Queensland, it is more freely distributed in favourable 

 situations, and it is common in the coastal scrubs and mountain ranges of Eastern New 



