21^ DIC^ID^. 



eye silvery-white; a small spot in front and feathers below the white eye-circlet blackish; ear-coverts olive- 

 yelloiv; base of forehead, chin, cheeks, throat, and fore neck bright yellozv; upper breast pale ashy ; 

 remainder of the under surface pale creamy-white, tinged with isabelline on the flanks, a line of 

 feathers doivn the centre of the breast washed with yellow; under tail-coverts bright yellow; "zipper 

 mandible black, the lower mandible black at the lip lighter at the base; legs and feet bluish-grey; 

 iris dark brotvn" (Masters) Total length 4-^.:7 inches, wing 2-2, tail 1-7, bill O-^Si, tarsus 0-7. 

 Adult female — Similar in plumage to the male but with slightly paler fanks. 

 Distribution— Cape Grenville, North-eastern Queensland; Islands of Torres Strait. 

 |FN describing this species, in the text of the "Voyage au Pole Sud,"- MM. Jacquinot and 

 -L Pucheran state that the type was obtained on Warrior Island. Later on Mr. George 

 Masters, the Curator of the Macleay Museum, at the University of Sydney, described it under 

 the name oi Zostci'ops ^avogularis,\ from specimens obtained by the members of the "Chevert" 

 E.xpedition, fitted out by the late Sir William Macleay in 1875. Following his description Mr. 

 Masters there remarks:— "One male and one female collected at Cape Grenville, (North-eastern 

 Queensland), five males and three females Sue Island, one female Bet Island, one female Warrior 

 Island, and one male Darnley Island. It is common at Cape Grenville and throughout all the 

 wooded islands in Torres Strait." In the "Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,"* 

 Dr. R. B. Sharpe enumerates specimens from Eagle, Booby, Murray and West Islands. 



The above description is taken from an adult male in the Australian Museum collection, 

 obtained by Mr. Masters on Sue Island, on the 27th July, 1875. The wing-measurement is 

 slightly smaller than the one described by Mr. Masters in the " Proceedings of the Linnean 

 Society of New South Wales," the latter being 2-3 inches, that of the specimen described by 

 Dr. Sharpe in the "Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum being 2-45 inches. 



There is a nest in the Macleay Museum, taken on the 27th June, 1875, by Ish. Masters, on 

 Warrior Island, the same locality as the type of this species was obtained. It is a deep cup- 

 shaped structure, composed of dried skeletons of leaves, held together with spiders' webs, 

 and neatly lined inside with fine wiry grasses, the whole exterior being covered with broad thin 

 strips of perfectly white semi-transparent paper-like bark of a Melaleuca. Externally it measures 

 three inches and one-eighth in diameter by two inches in depth, the inner cup measuring one 

 inch and three-quarters in diameter by one inch and a half in depth. The nest was attached by 

 the rim to a thin forked horizontal branch of a shrub, about five feet from the ground. It contained 

 two fresh eggs of a uniform pale bluish-green, and the measurements of both are alike:— 

 Length 072 x 0-5 inches. 



Family DIC^ID^. 



C3-en.-a.s ZDIOJEXJOivd:, Cuvier., 

 Diceeum hirundinaceum. 



MISTLETOE-BIRD. 

 Motacilla hirundinacea, Shaw, Nat. Miscl, Vol. IV., pp. prec. and opp. to PL 114 (1792). 

 Dicnum hirundinaceum, Gould, Bds. Austr., foL, Vol. II., pi. 34 (1848); id., Handbk. Bds. Austr 

 A'ol. I., p. 581 (18G5); Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. X., p. 10 (1885). 

 Adult hale— Head, all the upper 2Mrts and tail glossy steel-blue; upper wing-coverts and 

 innermost secondaries like the back; remainder of the quills black, narrowly edged erternally with 



* Voy Pole .Sud., Tom III., p. 95. (1S53), 

 t Proc. Linn. See. N. S. Wales, Vol. I., p. 56 (1S76). 

 J Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus , Vol. IX , p. 765 (1884). 



