PACIIYCKPHALA. 23 



and the smaller the olive-green bases to the tail feathers, until it is reduced to a slight wash at 

 the base of the feathers only. These characters are not however, constant, for one of the most 

 brilliantly plumaged adult males I have seen was obtained by Mr. R. Grant, on the Bellinger 

 River, New South Wales, and fully equalled in depth of colour others procured by him over eleven 

 hundred miles farther north at Cairns, North-eastern Queensland. Some specimens from the latter 

 locality, except in the smaller size of the bill, are indistinguishable from examples of P. melatmra; 

 others ha^•e the characteristic olive-green wash to the basal portion of the tail-feathers. This 

 variation in the extent of the olive-green wash on the tail-feathers is also found in specimens 

 obtained in the same locality in the southern portions of the continent. The w'mg-measurement 

 of adult males procured at Cairns varies from 3-35 to 3-45 inches. In a similar manner the band 

 on the foreneck varies in width from a well defined zone of black feathers to a deep crescentic 

 band. Of the latter type is an adult male in the Australian Museum collection, obtained at Port 

 Mackay, yueensland, with a black band extending on to the upper portion of the breast and 

 measuring nearly one inch in depth on the chest. 



A specimen in Mr. Edwin Ashby's collection, obtained at the Black Spur, Victoria, has 

 with the exception of the extreme tips, the tail feathers black for four-fifths of their length, and 

 their bases dark grey with a faint wash of olive-green; the under surface is as rich in colour 

 as a specimen of P. mclanura in the South .\ustralian Museum collection, obtained on one of 

 the islands of Torres Strait. 



Although Pachyccphalus gutturalis is found in the coastal scrubs and brushes, humid mountain 

 ranges are the favorite haunts of this species, its range extending inland in New South Wales 

 to the western slopes of the Blue Mountains. Near Sydney it is more abundantly distributed 

 on the highlands on the Milson's Point Railway Line, and is also common in the damp gullies 

 about National Park and Waterfall. 



It is possessed of cheerful notes, and from its habit of fre(]uently uttering them immediately 

 after a peal of thunder, the report of a gun, or any other loud and sudden noise, it is known to 

 many residents of New South Wales as the '-Thunder-bird." The brilliantly plumaged adult 

 male is usually rather shy, except when engaged in the duties of incubation, which it shares 

 with the female. When disturbed it resorts to some outspreading branch of a lofty tree, and 

 generally keeps its duller coloured back to an intruder. Stomachs of these birds I have examined 

 usually contained the remains of various kinds of insects, but principally beetles. In some, I 

 also found a few small berries. 



The nest is an open cup-shaped structure, rather roughly formed externally, but neat and 

 rounded on the inside, the rim or one side of the same being usually broad and nearly flat. The 

 materials of which they are formed vary according to their situation, some are built throughout of 

 Casuarina leaves, others externally of plant stems and rootlets, intermingled with skeletons of leaves, 

 and portion of dead fern fronds, lined with finer material. An average nest measures externally 

 four inches and a quarter in diameter by three inches and a half in depth, the inner cup measuring 

 two inches and a third in diameter by two inches in depth. The nesting site is extremely varied, 

 generally it is in the upright forks of a bush or low tree at a height varying from five to twelve 

 feet from the ground, but on the i8th October, 1902, I saw a nest at Ourimbah, being constructed 

 by an adult male in the outer leafy branches of a Lillypilly at an altitude of fully thirty feet. 

 In South Gippsland I have often found them artfully concealed in the dead drooping fronds of 

 a tree fern, but usually they are fairly conspicuous objects and easily found. Low trees in or 

 near the margins of mountain gullies are favorite situations. At Bundanoon, on the gth November, 

 1894, I found a nest with the male sitting on two fresh eggs, and on the following day 

 another nest with two incubated eggs, my attention being directed to the latter nest by the male 

 bird whistling while sitting. At Eastwood, on the 24th October, iSyb, I found a nest with the 

 male sitting on three fresh eggs. At Chatswood in company with Mr. C. G.Johnston we found 



