PACHYCEFHALA. 



August and the four following months constitute the usual breeding season of this species. 

 In the neighbourhood of Sydney, nests with eggs are plentiful in September and October, rarer 

 in November, and are occasionally found as late as December. On the Blue Mountains nests 

 with eggs are common in November; evidently two or more broods are reared during the season. 



Two adult males from Finniss and Mount Compass, South Australia, kindly lent by the 

 Trustees of the South Australian Museum, are intermediate between the eastern and 

 western species, but are more closely allied to P. occidcntalis. From the latter they vary in the 

 darker breast, slightly darker grey basal portion of the tail feathers and the broader and slightly 

 darker blackish-brown subterminal band. From typical examples of P. gidtuvalis, obtained in 

 New South Wales, they may be readily distinguished by the total absence of the olive-yellow 

 wash on the basal portion of the tail feathers, which is a uniform dark grey. 



I have distinguished this darker grey tailed form from South Australia under the name 

 of Pachycephala meridioimlis. ■ It forms a connecting link between the species inhabiting 

 New South Wales and its extreme western representative P. occidentalis. An adult male 

 in the Australian Museum collection, obtained near Adelaide in June, 1887, measures — Total 

 length 6-5 inches, wing 375, tail y2, bill 0-45, tarsus cSS. More recently I have examined 

 a male and female of this intermediate form in a collection of birds made on Kangaroo 

 Island, and kindly forwarded to me for examination by the Trustees of the South Australian 

 Museum, Adelaide. Two eggs taken at Mount Barker, near .\delaide, are of a creamy-bufF 

 ground colour, which is freckled, spotted, and blotched with rich umber-brown and a few small 

 underlying spots of blackish-grey; the larger markings being confined, principally to the thicker 

 end, where they are confluent and form well defined zones. Length (A) o-g x o-6i inches; 

 (B) 0-92 X o'63 inches. 



Some specimens from ^^'estern Mctoria are almost similar to those from South Australia. 

 A specimen in Mr. Edwin Ashby's collection procured at Lai Lal,\'ictoria, islike P. wcni/o/w/Zs, 

 but having the faintest trace of an olive-green wash on the basal portion of the tail-feathers. 



Pachycephala occidentalis. 



WESTERN THICKHEAD. 

 Pachycepliala guUuralis, (nee Lath.) Gould, Bds. Austr., fol.. Vol. II., pi. 6-1(1848); id., Handbk. Bds. 

 Austr,, Vol. L, p. 207 (1865); Gadow, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. VIII., p. 192 (1883) (male). 

 Pachycephala occidentalis, Ramsay, Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., Vol. II., p. 212 (1878); Sharpe, 

 Hand-1. Bds., Vol. IV., p. 306 (1903). 

 Adult male — Similar to the adult male of Pachtcephala gutturalis, Gould, but having 

 a paler yellow breast, the tail feathers grey for two-thirds of their length, without any olive ivasli, 

 and the blackish-broivn subterminal band much narrower than it is in that species. Total length 

 6'75 inches, wing 3-8, tail S'l, bill 0^5, tarsus 0-9. 



Adult fem.ale — Similar to the adult female ofP. gutturalis, hut having no olive ivash on the 

 upper parts of the body, ivings, and tail ; the centre of the breast, the abdomen and under tail-coverts biiff. 



Distribution — Western Australia. 

 ~re) ONG before Pachycephala occidcntalis was separated by Dr.Ramsay from the eastern species, 

 * V Gould had both figured and accurately described it in his folio edition of the '• Birds of 

 Australia," under Latham's older name of F. gutturalis. Dr. Gadow's description of the tail of 



* Rec, Austr. Mus., Vol. V., p, 126 (1904 ) 



