158 MUSCICAPID.E. 



The nest is a deep cup-shaped structure, formed of thin strips of bark, held together with 

 spider's web, the inside being usually lined with fine black hair-like rootlets, and the exterior 

 thinly coated with green mosses, and ornamented with the silky covering and egg-bags of 

 spiders. As a rule the latter decorations are pure white, but in several nests I have seen 

 they were bright green, or the two colours were intermingled together. Some nests from the 

 Upper Clarence District are lined with fine dried grass stems. The shape of the nest \aries 

 according to the angle of the fork in which it is built; those in wide forks being cup-shaped in 

 form, while those in narrow forks are built up a sufficient height to accommodate the sitting 

 bird, and resemble an inverted cone. An average nest measures externally three inches and a 

 half in diameter by two inches and three-quarters in depth, and the inner cup two inches in 

 diameter by one inch and three-quarters in depth. They are usually built in the upright fork 

 of a low tree, or in the fork of a hanging vine, at a height varying from three to twenty feet 

 from the ground. 



The eggs are two in number for a sitting, and vary in form from oval to elongate-oval, the 

 shell being close-grained and its surface dull and lustreless. They are of a dull or creamy- 

 white ground colour, thickly dotted and spotted with bright red or reddish-brown, some 

 specimens being uniformly marked over the surface of the shell and almost obscuring the 

 ground colour, others being more sparingly marked on the smaller end and having an irregular 

 zone or cap of spots on the larger end, and occasionally specimens are found with a few under- 

 lying dots and spots of reddish-grey. A set of two, taken in October, 1898, in Hackett's Scrub, 

 near Copmanhurst, on the Clarence River, measures as follows :— Length (A) 0-82 x o-6 inches; 

 (B) o-8i xo-6 inches. Another set of two, from the same locality, measures: — (A) 0-87 x o-6i 

 inches; (B) 0-84 x 0-63 inches. 



In the Upper Clarence River District, Mr. G. Savidge informs me that this bird is a migrant 

 and commences to build soon after its arrival about the middle of September. One nest he 

 found built in the fork of a hanging vine, twelve feet from the ground, and from which two eggs 

 were taken at the end of October, 1898, took the birds six weeks to construct. The eggs are . 

 deposited on successive days, and Mr. Savidge has found them as late as the 6th January, and 

 noted one year the species still frequenting the district at the beginning of May. 



Monarcha albiventris. 



WHITE-BELLIED FLYCATCHER. 

 Monarcha albiventris, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, I8G6, p. 217; id., Bds. Austr., .SuppL, fol., pi. 1.3 

 (1869). 



Piezorhynchus albiventris, Sharpe, Rep. Voy. "Alert," p. 15, 1884. 



Adult male — Like the adult male of Monarch.^ gouldi, hut having the upper tail-coverts 

 blackish, and the hnver portion of the breast and the sides of the body pure white. Total length 55 

 inches, wing 2'9, tail 2'7, bill O'J^, tarsus 0'7. 



Adult femalb — Similar in plumage to the male. 



Distribution.— Cape York Peninsula, Islands of Torres Straits. 



(^C LTHOUGH undoubtedly closely allied to Monarcha gouldi, the present species may be 

 X \. easily distinguished by having the lower portion of the breast and sides of the body 

 pure white. In the "Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum," ' Dr. Sharpe places M. albi- 

 ventris as a synonym of M. gouldi, but later on, in the "Report of the \'oyage of H.M.S. Alert, "f 

 states that he believes he was wrong in doing so, and there admits the validity of this species. 



* Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. iv., p. 419 (1879). 

 t Rep Zool. Coll. H M.S. " Alert," p. 15 (18S4). 



