564 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



at intervals throughout the day ; it often takes long flights, 

 mounts high above the trees, and then progresses steadily 

 and horizontally. It is mostly met with in small families of 

 from six to ten in number, frequenting the topmost branches 

 of the loftiest trees, and is seldom seen on or near the ground." 



The sexes present little or no difference in the colouring of 

 the plumage, or, when fully adult, in the colouring of the soft 

 parts, such as the naked skin round the eyes, &c. ; immature 

 birds, on the contrary, vary very much in the colouring of the 

 face and bill ; in the youthful those parts are saffron-yellow, 

 wdiich changes to rich ultramarine blue in the adult. 



The adults have the crown of the head and back of the 

 neck black ; lower part of the face, chin, and centre of the 

 chest slaty black ; a crescent-shaped mark at the occiput, a 

 line from the lower mandible passing down each side of the 

 neck, and all the under surface pure white ; upper surface 

 and wings greenish golden olive ; primaries brown, the basal 

 half of their inner webs snow-white ; tail-feathers brown, 

 tinged with golden olive, all but the two centre ones tipped 

 with white ; point and cutting edges of the upper mandible 

 blackish grey; basal half of the culmen horn-colour; re- 

 mainder of the bill sulphur-yellow ; orbits brilliant blue ; legs 

 and feet leek-green. 



Total length 1 2 inches ; bill 1 J ; wing 6 ; tail 4 J ; tarsi If. 



Genus MELITHREPTUS. 



No one group of birds is more universally distributed over 

 Australia than the members of this genus, for, like the Euca- 

 lypti, the trees upon which they are almost exclusively found, 

 their range extends from Tasmania on the extreme south to the 

 most northern part of the continent, and in an equal degree 

 from east to west, each part of country being inhabited by a 

 species peculiarly its own. I believe the form is unknown 

 out of Australia. 



