PACHYCEPHALA. -i ' 



bill should be of decreased size. Again, however closely adult males in full plumage of 

 P. melannra of North Australia and P. occidcntalis of Western Australia, may be found after 

 the examination of a large series collected in many intermediate localities to gradually merge 

 into the original species and type of the genus Pachycephala gutturalis, there is a marked and 

 wide divergence in the colour of the plumage of the adult females of these northern and western 

 forms. Whether the same intergradation does take place in the latter sex I am unable to say 

 from the scant material before me, for owing to their duller plumage, the females are as a rule, 

 far less frequently collected than the males. In the adult female of P. mclanui'n, the uniform 

 grey breast of P. gutturaUs is replaced with yellow, while in the adult female of P. occidcntalis 

 the abdomen is buff. 



Of thirteen specimens obtained during the Voyage of the " Chevert," fitted out by the late Sir 

 W'illiam Macleay in 1875, Mr. George Masters, whose original description of the adult female I 

 have transcribed above, informs me that it was first met with at Cape Grenville, afterwards at 

 Cape York, and was observed upon all the wooded islands visited in Torres Straits ; six males 

 and three females were obtained at Cape Grenville, two males and one female at Darnley 

 Island, one female at Long Island and another at Bet Island. If not identical, very closely 

 allied, is Pacycephala robustct"'- obtained during the same expedition at Cape York. While at the 

 Macleay Museum, at the Uni\'ersity of Sydney, comparing the type with the female of P. 

 melamira, Mr. Masters himself shared with me the belief that they are identical. With the 

 female too of PacJivccpJiala iiicliiiiurn must also be compared PachvccpJiala pciiinsulic, Hartert,+ 

 procured at Cape York. 



Pachycephala mclanura also occurs at the Gulf of Carpentaria, at Port Darwin, Port Essington, 

 and the Daly River in the Northern Territory of South Australia ; Derby, North-western 

 Australia, and Mr. Tom Carter forwarded me an example for examination he had shot in 

 the mangroves at North-west Cape on the 14th June, 1902. I have never seen a typical large- 

 billed specimen of P. melannra, from any inland locality all being procured in the coastal districts, 

 to which it seems to be confined, and giving preference to the mangroves. Except for being 

 smaller and slightly richer in colour, an adult male of Pachycephala gutturalis obtained near Cairns, 

 North-eastern Queensland, is barely distinguishable from an example I procured at Eastwood, 

 New South Wales, the latter having the tail feathers entirely black except narrow brownish 

 margins at the tips, and a very slight olive-green wash at their extreme base; the bill too being 

 comparatively larger in the southern bird. The latter specimen is one of the exceptions to the 

 general rule, and which I have referred to elsewhere. Both birds have black tail-feathers, but 

 they do not belong to the large billed form P. mclanura found in Australia only on the extreme 

 north-eastern, northern, and north-western coastal districts. 



A nest of this species, taken in the vicinity of Port Darwin, is a cup-shaped structure, 

 externally formed of thin twigs and grasses, and lined inside with very fine black hair-like 

 rootlets. It averages, externally four inches in diameter by two inches and a half in depth, the 

 inner cup measuring two inches and a half in diameter by one inch and a half in depth. 



The eggs were two in number, o\-al in form, the shell being close-grained, smooth and 

 slightly lustrous, of a creamy-bufT ground colour, with small irregular shaped spots and blotches 

 of dark umber and brownish-black, intermingled with a few underlying markings of dull inky- 

 grey, the markings predominating as usual at the larger end. Length (A) 0-85 x o'65 inches; 

 (B) o'88 X o'66 inches. Two eggs in the collection of Mr. C. French, Junr., taken in the 

 neighbourhood of the Daly River in the Northern Territory of South .\ustralia, on the 17th 

 January, 1902, are somewhat similarly marked, and measure : — Length (A) 0-82 x o-66 inches; 

 (B) o'85 X o"66 inches. 



* Proc Linn. Soc , N S.VV., Vol. I., p. 49 {1877). 

 t Nov. Zool., Vol. VI.. p. 423 (1S99). 



