Vol. XIII. 

 igi4 



1 Macgillivray, Notes on Some N.Queensland Birds. 167 



imitated will bring the bird to you. The female does most of the 

 nest-building, the male usually feeding close by. The nests are placed 

 in a dead or living fork of a mangrove at from 8 to 14 feet from the 

 water, and are made to assimilate in colour and character of exterior 

 to the limb they are on, so that they are very difficult to detect. 

 When flushed from the nest the female drops low down, flies right 

 away, and does not return for some considerable time. The eggs, 

 two in number, vary considerably in colouration, the ground colour 

 in some being a light green and in others a dark olive-green. 



Poecilodryas albigularis. White-throated Shrike-Robin. — Not a 

 common species at Cape York, only one pair being noted, in a big 

 patch of scrub about 4^ miles from Lockerbie. Tliis pair frequented 

 the same locaUty for three months before nesting. They are very 

 quiet birds, and only once in the three months did Mr. M'Lennan 

 hear their call, which was a short, harsh " Chee-chee-chee." " When 

 I was watcliing them they would often fly to witliin a few feet of where I 

 was sitting and cHng motionless to the side of a tree, a habit identical 

 with that of the Yellow-breasted Shrike-Robin of Victoria. The 

 nesl was placed in a lawyer vine, about 10 feet from the ground, and 

 contained two eggs. I sat down some distance away and waited 

 for the birds to retui^n. After waiting for about half an hour I saw 

 one of the birds fly to a tree about 10 feet from the nest. It sat there 

 for about ten minutes, then flew to within a couple of feet of the nest. 

 As soon as I moved it dropped from the nest and fluttered away 

 through the undergrowth." 



^Measurements of soft parts in a female specimen : — Length, 

 4^- inches ; irides greyish-brown ; bill black, base of lower mandible 

 transparent white ; legs pale yellow. Stomach contents, small beetles 

 and other insects. 



Mattingleya inornata. Plain-coloured Shrike-Robin. — Under this 

 heading we must now put a bird which was originally described as an 

 Eopsaltria by Dr Ramsay in the " Proceedings of the Zoological 

 Society of London," 1874, p. 604. The type is in the Australian 

 Museum, the habitat being given as the scrubs to the north of the 

 Endeavour River, but the locality on the label of the type is Cardwell. 

 The former locality is more hkely to be the correct one, as the bird 

 is fairly common in the Cape York scrubs, and even more so on the 

 Pascoe River. I had it pointed out to me by Mr. M'Lennan in the 

 scrub at Somerset in 19 10, where we watched and listened to it for 

 some time. According to Mr. M'Lennan, it is never to be seen near 

 the ground, always finding its living amongst the tangle of vege- 

 tation up in the scrub trees, and in this situation it was that we saw 

 it disporting itself. It has a Robin-like note and all the ways of this 

 group, and not in the least resembles any of the Pachycephalincs , 

 under which group it has been placed by Dr. Hartert, who has 

 described it as Pachycephala peninsulcs. Mr. Mathews created a new 

 genus for it in Mattingleya and as it is obviously neither a Pachy- 

 cephala nor an Eopsaltria it wall have to take its place under thus 

 new genus.* However, I must disagree with i\Ir. Mathews in still 

 calling it a Thickhead. Its nest and eggs, when found, will help 

 towards settling the points in dispute. Eggs have been sent down 

 from Cape York as those of P. peninsula^ ; these are, however, in most 

 instances doubtless those of P. falcata, the only Thickhead in that 

 region. 



* Vide Matthews, Austral Avian Record, vol. ii., p. 11. 



