286 PLOCEID.E. 



having a white bar near the tip, bordered on either side with a narrow black line; under tail-coverts 

 light vinaceous hroivn, with a dusky toash on the apical portion, which has an ill defined cross-bar 

 and broad tip of dull ivhite ; bill ashy-grey; legs and feet flesh colour ; iris dark brown. Total length 

 in the flesh 4'4 inches, wing 2-3, tail 1-3, bill 0^, tarsus O'BS. 



Adult fkmale — Similar in phvnage to the male, but the feathers on the sides of the face, 

 ear-coi'erts and throat of a broivnish-black, and those on the fore neck black with narrower ivhite tips, 

 revealing their black sub-apical portion, and giving this part a black and white barred appearance. 



Distribution — North-western Australia, Northern Territory of South Australia, Northern 

 Queensland. 



/"I^IIIi White-breasted Finch is an inhabitant of North-western Australia, the Northern 

 JL Territory of South Australia and the Gulf District of Queensland. Mr. E.J. Cairn 

 obtained several specimens near Derby in i886; so, likewise, did the late Mr. T. H. Bowyer- 

 Bower. Mr. G. A. Keartland procured an adult male and female near the junction of the 

 Fitzroy and Margaret Rivers, while a member of the Calvert E.xploring Expedition in 1897. 

 I have seen a number of living birds in Sydney that were trapped about eight miles from Port 

 Darwin. Dr. E. P. Ramsay has also recorded it from the Gulf District of Queensland, from 

 specimens procured there by Mr. Gulliver. Since Gould described the type in 1839, up to 1886, 

 when Mr. Cairn and the late Mr. T. H. Bowyer-Bower obtained specimens near Derby, it was 

 looked upon as a rare species, and even in 1894 the British Museum had only a single specimen, 

 when Dr. R. B. Sharpe prepared Volume XIII. of the "Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum." 



M. Octave Le Bon, who during the past twenty years has spent the greater part of his time 

 in trapping birds in many parts of Australia, and paying periodical visits to Europe with his 

 captures, informs me that in Northern Queensland he trapped about two hundred of these 

 birds about forty miles west of Charters Towers, in October 1906, more being caught about ten 

 miles from Croydon. In North-western Australia he observed them in immense flocks, six miles 

 from Wyndham. The largest number he ever caught at one pull of the trap was about one 

 hundred and fifty. These birds are known to dealers as " Picturellas," a corruption of the specific 

 na.me pectoralis. They are very wild, easily take fright, and when first captured do not take 

 kindly to confinement. They were always found about creeks, clay pans, and muddy sides of 

 waterholes, the young birds being very fond of feeding on a green sedge left by subsiding waters. 



The following is taken from my description published in the " Victorian Naturalist "" in 

 May 1899 : — " A nest of Munia pectoralis, found near the junction of the Fitzroy and Margaret 

 Rivers, North-western Australia, by Mr. Keartland at the latter end of February, 1897, was a 

 flask-shaped structure, outwardly formed of very coarse grass stalks, and neatly lined inside 

 with the finest "silver-grass." It contained four eggs, and was built in a shrub, about ten feet 

 from the ground. The eggs are elongate oval in form, white with a faint bluish tinge, the 

 surface of the shell being smooth and lustreless, and measures: — Length (A) 0-65 x 0-43 inches ; 

 (B) 0-64 X 0-42 inches; (C) 0-64 x 0-42 inches; (D) 0-62 x 0-43 inches. 



Young birds are brown above, upper wing-coverts like the back, quills dusky brown 

 externally edged with fulvous brown, the inner webs of the secondaries broadly margined with 

 fulvous ; tail feathers dusky-brown ; head brown ; lores blackish ; ear-coverts dark brown ; throat 

 creamy-brown with a few blackish feathers on the upper part; remainder of the under surface 

 light creamy-brown with a vinaceous wash, which is more pronounced on some specimens than 

 others, even from the same nest ; on the fore neck are some scattered black feathers with large 

 white tips. Wing 2-2 inches. 



Immature birds resemble the adult female, and have the sides of the face, ear-coverts and 

 throat brownish-black. Wing 2-4 inches. 



* Vict. Nat., Vol, XVI., p. :2 (1889.) 



