378 DA0EL0N1N,E. 



of the quills blackish; central pair of tail-feathers ivhiie, the remainder blue, the lateral feathers blackish 

 on their inner webs, the outer feather on either side blackish, except a slight bluish tvash on the apical 

 portion of the outer web; cruwti of the head deep idlratnarine-blue in the centre, passing into brighter 

 blue on the sides of the head and nape; all the under surface, under tail, and under tving-coverts rich 

 cinnamon colour, paler on the latter and the centre of the throat; bill sealing-wax red ; legs and feet 

 sealitig-wax red. Total length IS inches, wing SS, central tail feathers 7-75, next on either side 2-8, 

 bill 1'2, tarsus O^oB. 



Adult female — Resembles the male, but is duller in colour, the spot on the back is tinged with 

 buff, and the central pair of white tail-feathers, which are shorter, have the basal portion of their outer 

 webs blue, except near the shaft. 



Distribution — North-eastern Queensland. 



^^HE White-tailed Kingfisher is a spring and early summer migrant to the coastal districts 

 of North-eastern Queensland, and after the breeding season is over apparently leaves 

 the mainland at the end of March. In the " Proceedings of the Royal Society of Queensland" •- 

 on the " Migration of Birds at the Cape York, Peninsula," Mr. K. Broadbent remarks : — 

 " Tanysiptera sylvia have all left here by the end of March. Mr. F. L. Jardine informs me that in 

 the month of October, during the early morning, he has met with them here in hundreds, so 

 tired and enfeebled by their migration as to refuse to tly out of harm's way, and that on the day 

 previous to this visitation they were nowhere to be seen." 



Although observers along the Northern Queensland Coast, from Cape York south to Ingham, 

 near the mouth of the Herbert River, are unanimous that it is a strictly migratory species, I 

 have never seen it recorded, nor does anyone I have questioned seem to know, the northward limit 

 of its range after leaving Australia, nor from whence it comes and whither it returns; but 

 probably it is to one of the larger islands of Torres Strait, for it does not occur in New Guinea, 

 even at Port Moresby in the south-eastern part of that island, and where it is represented by 

 its slightly smaller and closely allied congener, Tanysiptera salvadoriana, Ramsay. 



In Australia it is exclusively an inhabitant of the belt of rich tropical vegetation situated 

 on the north-eastern coast of Queensland, and is never found in the dry open country inland. 



The late Mr. J. A. Thorpe, who spent seventeen months collecting on the Cape York 

 Peninsula, and principally in the neighbouihood of Somerset, informed me that the favourite 

 haunts of these lovely plumaged birds were the open spaces beneath the wide-spreading branches 

 of the trees selected by large colonies of Calornis metallica, as nesting-sites. In that locality he 

 found them breeding during October. They tunnel a hole in the low ant hills, which are 

 composed chiefly of rich black soil, and found only in the dense scrubs. Near the extremity of 

 the tunnel a chamber is hollowed out for the reception of the eggs. He also informed me that he 

 had never found these birds breeding in the large clay mounds of the Termites in the adjacent open 

 country, or met with them out of the scrubs. Females procured while nesting have the lengthened 

 tail feathers much abraded. 



Mr. Frank Hislop sends me the following note: — "In the Bloomfield River District, North- 

 eastern Queensland, Tanysiptera sylvia arrives early in November and commences to breed almost 

 at once, and leaves again about the end of February soon after it is over. They make their 

 burrows in Termites' mounds on the ground, in the scrubs, and usually lay four eggs. The native 

 name of this bird is " Tchewal-tchewal." 



Writing me in 1905 from Hambledon Plantation near Cairns, Mr. A. F. Smith, remarks: — 

 " Tanysiptera sylvia arrived earlier this year ; I heard a number in the scrub and saw two on the 

 17th November. Last year they were nearly a month later, I saw the first of them on the 15th 



• Proc. Roy. Soc. Qld., Vol. I., p. 94 (1884). 



