BLACK-TAILED THICKHEAD. 
Immature female. General colour of the upper-surface dark ash-grey including the top 
of the head, sides of the face, hind-neck, back, upper tail-coverts, scapulars, and 
upper wing-coverts ; a narrow band of pale rufous across the nape joining the 
ear-coverts which are also more or less infused with rufous ; bastard-wing and 
primary-coverts somewhat darker and inclining to brown ; flight-quills blackish- 
brown, ash-grey on the outer webs and whitish on the margins of the inner ones, 
the innermost secondaries broadly edged with rufous ; tail yellowish-green with 
very narrow pale edgings to the feathers ; lores whitish ; chin and throat white 
with slightly obsolete markings ; breast and abdomen pale isabelline with the 
obsolete markings on the former but absent on the latter ; sides of the body rather 
darker slightly intermixed with rufous, middle of abdomen and under tail-coverts 
rufous with white bases to the feathers ; axillaries and under wing-coverts white ; 
under-surface of flight-quills greyish-brown ; lower aspect of tail yellowish-olive. 
Eyes brown, feet and tarsus leaden-blue. Bill brown. Collected at Point Torment, 
North-west Australia, on the 5th of January, 1911. 
Nest. Cup-shaped and placed in an upright three-pronged fork of a mangrove tree growing 
in centre of a thick patch placed about six feet from the ground, the bottom of the 
nest quite an inch up from where the forks branch. Composed of soft coarse rootlets 
(one of which was twenty-four inches long) and lined with finer rootlets. Outside 
of the nest lightly covered with cobwebs and loosely attached to the tree with the 
same material. Outside dimensions 3§ by 2 1 inches deep. Inside 2 by If inches 
deep. 
Eggs. Clutch, two. Whitish, with a heavy zone, round the larger end of reddish-brown 
and chestnut spots, with underlying ones of lavender. 21 mm. by 16. Collected 
at Point Torment on the 27th of December, 1910. I believe this to be the only 
known egg of the real P. m. melanura. 
Breeding-season. December (to March ?). 
In 1843 Gould described a Thickhead as Pachycephala melanura and this name 
has been also badly misused. The locality given was North-west Australia, 
and though typical specimens were not available to workers the name came 
into use for North of Australia species which showed none of the characters 
by which Gould determined his species. When I rejected this misusage and 
applied Gould’s name to North-western examples, I regarded all the Yellow- 
breasted Australian Thickheads as referable to one species. It was nqt until 
quite recently that I recognised that many species were being confused through 
the fact that the males were of similar coloration. 
Gould wrote : “ The P. melanura is a native of the northern coasts of 
Australia, where it was procured by B. Bynoe, Esq., during the surveying 
voyage of H.M.S. Beagle. It may be readily distinguished from the P. 
gutturalis and P. glaucura by the jet-black colouring of the tail (which organ 
is also shorter and more square than that of any other species), by its much 
longer bill, and by the colouring of the back of the neck and the under-surface 
being richer than that of either of those above named. I have not yet seen a 
female of this fine species. Whenever this sex is collected, it will be found 
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