202 MUSCICAPID.E. 



Gerygone personata. 



MASKED SCKUB-WAKBLKK. 

 GerygouK personata, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1866, p. 217; id., Bds. Austr., fol., Suppl., pi. M 



(1869). 

 Pseudogerygone personata, Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. IV., p. 229 (1879). 



Adult male — General colour above olive-green: lesser and median loing-coverls like the hack; 

 greater iving-coverts and quills dark hroicn, narroivly edged externally irith yelloiv ; tail feathers 

 brown, washed with olive; forehead and feathers in front of tlie eye brown; lores and a stripe 

 extending from the base of the lower mandible to below the ear-coverts white; throat dark brown; 

 remainder of the under surface and under tail-coverts pale yellow; bill black ; legs and feet blackislv- 

 bronm. Total length 4 inches, wing 2-2, tail 1-7, bill 0-^, tarsus 0-7 . 



Adult female — Differs from the male in the absence of the brown forehead ayid tliroat ; chin 

 whitish; throat yellow like the remainder of the under surface. 



Distribution. — North-eastern Queensland. 



^"f^HE Masked Scrub-W'arhler inhabits the coastal brushes of North-eastern Queensland, 

 J- from Cape York as far south as the Herbert River District. During the "Chevert" 

 E.xpedition, Mr. George Masters obtained three adult males, three adult females, and one 

 young male at Cape York, also an adult male on the Endeavour River, near Cooktown, and a 

 female on Palm Island. 



Dr. Sharpe, in the "Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum," '■ regards Gerygone flavida, 

 Ramsay, as the female of G. personata, and places it as a synonym of the latter species, an 

 opinion also held by Mr. Masters, who informs me that he always observed the male of 

 G. personata in company with a yellow-throated bird. I have compared the type oi G. flavida 

 with the females of G. personata in the Macleay Museum, and cannot find any difference 

 between them. The curious habit of these birds, from Cape York to the Herbert River, of 

 forming a nest generally of palm fibre, and placing it at the end of a drooping branch or a vine 

 in close proximity to a hornets' nest, tends to prove they are all referable to one species. It is 

 remarkable, however, that six adult specimens, labelled G. flavida, in the Australian Museum, 

 obtained by Mr. Kendal Broadbent at various times near Cardwell and the Upper Herbert 

 River, are destitute of the dark forehead and throat, as occurs in the adult male of G. personata. 

 Neither have I seen in any collection a typical example of a fully adult male of this species 

 that was obtained from further south than the scrubs of the Endeavour River. Dr. Ramsay 

 took his description of G. flavida from two birds obtained by Mr. Broadbent in the Herbert 

 River District, that are alike in plumage, and which the collector had labelled "scrub-bird," 

 "new," and respectively male and female. Apparently it is common in the Herbert River 

 District, for Mr. E. H. Webb informs me that in 1902 he found two nests, each containing two 

 eggs, and five old nests all of which were built in lawyer-vines in thick scrub and close to 

 hornets' nests. These nests he referred to those oi G. personata, but, as in Mr. Frank Hislop's 

 experience in the Bloomfield River District, he only caught a passing glimpse of the bird as he 

 flushed it from the nest, an-d never handled a specimen. While at the Australian Museum, 

 Mr. W'ebb however readily recognised a nest of G. personata, obtained by ;\Ir. B. Jardine at 

 Cape York, as being the same as those he had found on the Herbert River. Mr. C. \\'. 

 De Vis, M.A., who regards G. flavida as a distinct species, has recorded it from the foot of 

 Mount Bellender Ker.f 



• Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. iv., p. 230 (1879). 

 t Rep. Sci. Exped. Bell. Ker, p. 86 (1889). 



