134 



MKLIPHAGID.E. 



the wing measurement of the latter which is probably a female, is only 2-S inches. The adult 

 male whose measurements are given in the preceding description, differs from the type in the 

 more pronounced bright olive wash on the greater wing-coverts, the clearer yellow sides of the 

 head, in strong contrast to the crown and nape which is less distinctly washed with yellow, as 

 is also the centre of the throat and fore neck. 



Dr. \V. i\Iacgilli\ray informs me that these birds are fairly common in the tea-trees along 

 the banks of the Fullerton River, on Leilavale Station, thirty miles east of Cloncurry, Queensland. 

 A set of three eggs taken by J\Ir. A. S. Macgillivray from a small nest in the spring of igoi on 

 Leilavale Station, are inclined to thick oval in form and vary in ground colour from bufify-white 

 to yellowish-buff, over which is distributed spots and freckles of purplish-red, which are larger 

 on two specimens and darker on one on the thicker end where they are chiefly confined, fainter 

 subsurface markings appearing as if beneath the surface of the shell. Length (A) 078 x o-6 

 inches; (B) 079 x o-6 inches; (C) 076 x o-6i inches. As might be expected, they are 

 indistinguishable from a variety of the eggs of Ptilotis pcnicillata. Dr. Macgillivray also informs 

 me that his brother sent him a single egg ol F. Icilavalensis, also an egg of the Pallid Cuckoo 

 found in the same nest. 



The range of this species in a southerly direction appears to extend through the central 

 portions of the continent to the Flinders Range and Port Augusta in South Australia, of which 

 there are specimens in the Australian Museum collection; also two in the South Australian 

 Museum, Adelaide, one a young bird from Warrina, the other an adult picked up in a dry creek 

 after a storm, by Mr. A. Zietz, the Assistant Director, at Lake Callabona in 1904. Comparing 

 these specimens with those from the Cloncurry District, Queensland, there is a slight variation 

 in the colours, principally on the under parts, some of them approaching a very faint creamy-buff 

 slightly tinged with yellow. 



Dr. A. M. Morgan, who accompanied Dr. A. Chenery in July and August 1900 in a trip 

 from Port Augusta to Mount Gunson and back, thus refers to this brightly coloured form: — 

 "Ptilotis penicillata was common at Port Augusta, but further north was seen only in the gum 

 creeks. All birds examined were of the Uglit colound variety. Three nests were found ; two 

 at Elizabeth Creek on the 7th August, 1900, one building, the other with three nearly fresh eggs, 

 and another at Yultacowie Creek four days later with two eggs. All were built in the over- 

 hanging branches of gum trees." 



From North-western Australia Dr. E. Hartert," has recorded it from Marble Bar and 

 Nullagine Road, and there is no doubt that the birds met with by the Calvert Exploring 

 Expedition between Lake Way and Lake Augusta in Western Australia, which is referred by 

 Mr. G. A. Keartland to Ptilotis penicillata, also those he observed at Davenport Creek, when 

 with the Horn Scientific Expedition in Central Australia, belonged to this form. 



A nest referable to P. hilavalensis taken by Mr. C. E. Cowle at Illamurta, in Central Australia, 

 in August 1899, is an unusually neat cup-shaped structure, formed throughout of fine pale yellowish- 

 brown wiry rootlets held together with plant-down and spider's webs, the inside being sparingly 

 lined with similar but finer rootlets. Externally it measures three inches in diameter by two 

 inches in depth; the inner cup measuring two inches and a quarter in diameter by one inch and 

 three-quarters in depth. It contained two eggs, elongated ovals in form, the shell being close- 

 grained, smooth and lustreless. They are of a dull white ground colour, and have both rounded 

 and irregular shaped spots of purplish-brown intermingled with similar underlying markings of 

 faint purplish-grey, which predominate on the thicker end. Length (A) o-8 x o'56 inches; (B) 

 0-82 X o'57 inches. 



• Nov. Zool., Vol, XII., p. 234, {1905). 



