PYCNOPTILUS. 309 



April, 189S, at Illanuuta, Central Australia, by Mr. C. E. Cowle, measures:— (A) 075 x 0-56 

 inches; (B) 076 x 0-37 inches; (Cj 072x0-54 inches. 



Xests with eggs are more often found in New South Wales during August and the two 

 following months, but in Central Australia the breeding season usually commences after a 

 heavy downfall of rain in March and April. Mr. Cowle has also obtained nests with eggs 

 early in December. 



Se\-eral of the sets of eggs of Pyrrhohemus hyiinnais received from Mr. Cowle, and taken 

 by him in Central Australia, each contained an egg of the Black-eared Cuckoo (Misocaliics 

 palliolattis). Since I described the egg of the latter species, '^ Mr. A. Zietz, the Assistant Director 

 of the South Australian Museum, wrote me as follows:— "It may interest you to learn that I 

 received in 1893 from Mr. R. Hawker, an egg of the Black-eared Cuckoo (Misocalms palUoIatus, 

 Lath.), which he found in a nest of Pyrrhohemus hninncus, at Parallana, Flinders Range, South 

 Australia. Two eggs from the nest of the latter species, Mr. Hawker also sent with it. The 

 egg of the Black-eared Cuckoo agrees in colour and size with your description in the 'Report 

 of the Horn Scientific Expedition,' and may be described as chocolate-brown with a rusty 

 tinge. Mr. Hawker has often noticed the Black-eared Cuckoo, in the neighbourhood of 

 Parallana.'" 



O-en-iAS I="5rcnsr02=TIILjXT3, Gould. 

 Pycnoptilus floccosus. 



PILOr-BIED. 

 Pycnoptilus floccosus, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, 18.50, p. 95; id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., p. 

 348 (1865); id., Bds. Austr., fob, Suppl, pi. 27 (1869); Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. 

 VII, p. 342 (1883); id, Hand-1. Bds., Vol. IV., p. 4 (1903). 



Addlt male — General colour above hroivn, loith a rufescent wash which is more pronounced on 

 the lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts; tail rufescent-brown ; upper wing-coverts like the back, 

 the outermost feathers of the median and greater series with an indistinct ochraceous-brown spot at 

 the tip; quills dark brown, ivith a rufescent wash on their outer ivebs, which extends all over the 

 innermost secondaries, also the greater wing-coverts; ear-coverts brown; lores and forehead ru/escent- 

 ochre; feathers above and beloiu the eye, the cheeks, throat, and breast, similar in colour, but with a 

 less pronounced rufescent shade, the feathers of the upper breast having brown centres, giving this 

 part a scaly appearance; centre of the breast white; abdomen and flanks rufous-brown; under 

 tail-coverts chestnut; bill dark broivn, base of the bwer mandible pale broum; legs dark reddish- 

 brown, the feet of a slightly deeper tint; iris brown. Total length in the flesh 6-5 indies, wing 2-75, 

 tail 2-75, bill 0:5, tarsus 11.5. 



Adult female— .S'imi/ar in plumage to the male. 



Distribution. — New South Wales, \'ictoria. 



/T^HE Downy Pycnoptilus, or Pilot-bird, is an inhabitant of the heavily-timbered mountain 

 -L ranges and humid scrubs of Eastern Victoria and South-eastern New South Wales. 

 During my first visit to South Gippsland, Victoria, in August, 1878, these birds were unusually 

 plentiful in the luxuriant undergrowth that clothed the sides of the fern gullies and hills of the 

 Strzelecki Ranges. At that tmie only a few clearings had been made in the virgin growth of 

 this part of the State, and as one slowly toiled along the track through the mud on horseback, 

 the rich and beautiful notes of this species would be more frequently heard than the bird itself 

 was seen. Subsequently I found it by no means a shy species, and the animated little puffy 



* Rep. Horn. Sci. Exped., Vol. ii., Zool., p. 65 (1896). 



