90 MUSOIOAFID^. 



South Wales, Interior, Victoria and South Australia, W. and 

 S.W. Australia. (Bamsay.) 



Genus PIEZOEHYNCHUS, Gould. 



2. PIEZORHYNCHTJS NITIDUS, Gould. 



Shining Flycatcher. 

 Govld, Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 142, p. 249. 



Mr. J. A. Boyd found this bird breeding early in January 1888, 

 on the Herbert River, Queensland ; the nest was built on the dead 

 branch of a Ti-tree, {Melaleuca) that had fallen into a waterhole. 



This species usually builds its nest near the ground on a 

 horizontal branch or forked limb ; it is a deep cup-shaped structure 

 composed of strips of bark and grasses, held together with cobwebs, 

 and ornamented on the outside with small scales of bark and 

 lichens, the interior being neatly lined with wiry roo^ets. The 

 eggs, two in number for a sitting, vary in form from swollen to 

 elongated ovals, they are of a bluish-white ground colour, minutely 

 spotted and blotched with olive-brown intermingled with obsolete 

 spots of greyish-lilac, all of which predominate towards the larger 

 end, where they assume the form of a zone, but are not confluent. 



The dimensions of two sets in the Australian Museum Collection 

 are as follows :— length No. 1 (A) 0-85 x 0-65 ; (B) 0-85 x 0-65 ; 

 No. 2 (C) 0-9 X 0-61 ; (D) 0-9 x 0-62 inch. 



Hah. Port Darwin and Port Essington, Cape York, Rockingham 

 Bay, Port Denison, South Coast New Guinea. {Ramsay.) 



■^ PIEZORHYNCHUS GOULDII, G. B. Gray. 



(M. trivirgptta, Gould.) 

 Black-fronted Flycatcher. 

 Gould, Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 153, p. 262. 



" The nest and eggs of this very interesting species were 

 *orwarded to me in 1865, from South Grafton, by the late Mr. J. 



