MACH^RIRHYNCHUS NIGRIPECTUS. 59 



Mr. Gould has kindly lent me, for examination, a young bird in his 

 collection belonging to this genus, from Somerset, Cape York. 



This specimen clearly has no reference to M. nignpectus. It has a shorter 

 tail ; the yellow is faint ; the back is yellow ; the outer edge of the first two 

 primaries is white, in the others it is yellow; the throat is white ; neverthe- 

 less it has hlaclc spots on the chest. 



To what species, then, does this example belong ? It perhaps may be 

 the young of M.Jlaviventer. Now Gray says that in the young of M. alUfrons 

 the breast is waved with fuscous. It is not, perhaps, impossible that the 

 immature dress of all the four species may have more or less markings on 

 the chest ; but at present nothing is known, and my observation is not 

 pretended to be of much value. 



In the adult bird from which the Plate is taken, now in my collection, 

 the throat is yellow, the tail long, the bill large, the back black ; the outer 

 edge of all the primaries is dusky white ; the colour a much richer yellow- 

 golden, I may say. 



Mr. Wallace ('Geographical Distribution of Animals,' vol. i. p. 414), 

 under the head of " Bright Colours and Ornamental Plumage of Birds of New 

 Guinea" (which he calls "a teeming bird-land''), says, ''One of the most 

 striking features of Papuan ornithology is the large proportion which the 

 handsome and bright-coloured birds bear to the more obscure species ;" and 

 " among the most remarkable forms " he classes " Machcerirhynchus, curious 

 little boat-billed Flycatchers, and Todopsis, a group of terrestrial Flycatchers 

 with the brilHant colours of Pitta or M alums.'' 



