SPECTACLED FLYCATCHER. 
also nests in the wet months of the summer. In a dry season, like that of 191 1 -12, 
very few nest.” Later, of the Claudie River, he added : “ Is a common bird in 
the scrub. Several nests were noted after the commencement of the wet season; 
these are usually placed within easy reach, the highest being 15 feet up. A small 
upright fork is usually chosen as a site for the cup-shaped nest, composed usually 
of fine bark and fibres well bound together with cobwebs. The eggs are invariably 
two in number. The newly-hatched young have the skin blue-black, with a 
trace of dark slaty down on the head, back, femoral and humeral tracts. The 
sprouting primaries also appear to be bluish-black, legs and feet slaty, bill 
black, eyes just opening, gape pale yellow. These were a few in the scrub on 
the Archer River.” 
At the time Gould prepared his 44 Synopsis ” he figured the heads of three 
species of Monarcha , viz., M. trivirgata, M. carinata and M. inornata. The 
first species named he simply recorded from Australia, though it had been 
described from Timor. 
In his 44 Handbook,” published in 1865, he maintained this name, writing : 
“ Although the Monarcha trivirgata has been known to naturalists for many 
years, it is still a scarce bird, very few specimens occurring in any of the 
numerous collections sent home from Australia, which is doubtless occasioned 
by its true habitat not having been yet discovered. The specimens seen have 
been procured in the Moreton Bay district of the east coast. All the examples 
that have come under my notice have been marked precisely alike, with the 
exception of one procured during the early part of Dr. Leichhardt’s expedition 
from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, which differs in being destitute of the 
rufous tint on the flanks, and which may be a female. I can perceive little or 
no difference between Australian examples and specimens brought by Mr. 
Wallace from the islands of Batchian and Timor. In form and markings this 
species closely assimilates to the members of the genus Arses” Previously 
Gray had named the bird from New South Wales M. gouldi, and in 1866 Gould 
accepted this, while describing the Cape York form as a new species, 
M. albiventris, writing : “ Distinguished by the unsullied whiteness of its 
axillaries, abdomen, and lower part of its flanks, by the black of the fore-head 
and throat being somewhat more extensive, and by the larger size of the white 
terminal portion of the outer tail-feathers.” Sharpe, in the Rep. Zool Coll. 
A lert? 1884, p. 14, introduced a new species Piezorhynchus medius from Port 
Molle, having black upper tail-coverts like the Timor form, the typical gouldi 
having grey, writing: “It is certain that the white-flanked individuals (P. 
albiventris Gould) have the upper tail-coverts blackish, whereas in the rufous* 
flanked birds, P. gouldi Gray, the tail-coverts are grey.” 
In the Tab. List Austr. Birds , 1888, Notes and References opposite page 6, 
87 
