WHITE-BELLIED THICKHEAD. 
rest of under-surface pale isabelline-buff, with narrow dusky shaft-lines, a little 
more distinct on the fore-neck and breast, which are more ashy ; sides of body 
and flanks pale ashy-brown, the dusky shaft-lines very obscure ; lower-abdomen 
and vent white ; under tail-coverts isabelline-buff ; under wing-coverts and 
axillaries pale creamy-buff ; quills light brown below distinctly ashy along the 
inner web. Culmen 20 mm. ; wing 93, tail 70, tarsus 24. Collected at 
Kimberley (= Normanton), Gulf of Carpentaria, North Queensland. 
The male and female described are from Kimberley in North Queensland and are 
the types of Pachycephala fretorum De Vis. These two birds are now lost, so the 
above descriptions are doubly interesting. I described them in 1907. 
Immature males. Resemble the females. 
Nest. Built of twigs and rootlets and lined with finer rootlets and fastened to the tree 
with cobweb. Outside dimensions 4J inches by 4f by 2\ deep. Inside 2| by 
2 ttt inches by If inches deep. This nest was in a white mangrove, about 6 feet from 
the ground, built in a fork in the centre of the tree, which was growing out on 
the open beach about 10 yards from the mangrove thicket. The nest was most 
conspicuous. 
Eggs. Clutch, two. Ground-colour stone or buff, with a zone of umber and lavender 
spots at the larger end. 26.5 mm. by 18. 
Breeding-season. December and January. 
In 1865 Gould still wrote : “ The single specimen of this species which has 
come under my notice was procured on the north-west coast of Australia, and 
is probably unique. It is a most robust and powerful bird, and may hereafter 
be made the type of a new genus ; but until the female has been discovered, 
and more examples obtained, I retain it among the Pachycephalce. That it 
feeds on insects of a large size there can be little doubt, its whole structure 
indicating that it subsists upon this kind of food. No information whatever 
has been obtained with respect to its habits and economy ; this blank, therefore, 
remains to be filled up by those naturalists who may hereafter visit the part 
of the country of which it is a denizen.” 
Twenty odd years later Saville Kent recorded that De Vis identified his 
specimens, and: “ A somewhat rare form shot by myself among the mangroves 
in Cambridge Gulf, North-west Australia, is a female specimen of Pachycephala 
lanoides P This was the first female, and the second specimen, procured of 
this very rare species, but De Vis, upon second thoughts (in the same paper), 
wrote : “ Among the birds brought from Cambridge Gulf is a young female 
Pachycephala, which is identical with an adult of the same sex previously 
procured at Kimberley on the Gulf of Carpentaria in company with two males. 
These which have hitherto been supposed to be P. lanoides Gould must now 
be considered to constitute a distinct species. The writer proposes for it the 
name P. fretorum .” He then gave details, concluding : “ It will be seen from 
these measurements that P. fretorum is inferior in size and different in propor- 
tions to P. lanoides. It is further distinguished by the pectoral bands of black 
VOL. VIII. 
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