BLACK-FACED CUCKOO-SHRIKE. 
outer feathers ; lores, feathers below and behind the eye, and ear-coverts blackish ; 
abdomen and sides of body white with a wash of smoke-brown ; thighs like the 
breast ; lower-abdomen, vent and under tail-coverts covered with white down ; 
margin of under wing white ; under-surface of quills slate-brown ; lower aspect 
of tail-coverts white or greyish-white. Eyes light blue ; feet fleshy ; bill horn- 
brown. Collected at Ringwood, Victoria, on the 3rd of November, 1914. 
Nest. Nearly flat. Placed in a three-pronged fork of a bloodwood tree about 18 feet up. 
Composed of fine twigs, stems of annuals, a little grass and a few small leaves, 
loosely fastened together with cobwebs and the outside covered lightly with the 
same material. Outside dimensions 5f by 2f inches deep. Inside 3| by £ deep. 
Eggs. Clutch, three. Ground-colour greenish-brown, spotted (more on the larger end) 
with reddish and fight grey spots. 31-34 mm. by 22-24. 
Breeding-season. February, March and July (Queensland) to December (Derby). 
This bird was first met with by the naturalists accompanying Captain 
Cook on his third voyage when a specimen was secured at Adventure Bay, 
Tasmania, and painted by Ellis. The painting passed into the possession 
of Sir Joseph Banks and thence into the Library attached to the Natural 
History Department of the British Museum. Whether the specimen was 
preserved or not it is impossible to determine, as when Latham described 
his New Holland Thrush, he wrote : “ In the collection of Sir Joseph Banks.” 
This may have referred to the specimen itself or to the painting above 
mentioned, as at that time for the purposes of description they did not 
discriminate between paintings and the subjects themselves. This description 
was reproduced by Gmelin, who gave it the Latin name Turdus novcehollandice. 
This name appears to have been entirely ignored, through the inaccurate 
generic location, and even when Sharpe worked through the paintings made by 
Ellis, and at once recognised this one, he did not draw attention to the fact 
that the name should come into use as the earliest given to the species. At 
the same time Sharpe collated the Watling drawings and identified No. 28 
which Latham had named Lanius robustus as referable to this species and 
anterior to No. 58, which Latham simultaneously named Corvus melanops. 
The former had not been recognised, but the latter had been, and the name 
was in common use. Sharpe noted, therefore, that the name of the species 
should be Graucalus robustus. 
When I carefully studied the Watling drawings I concluded that Sharpe 
had erred, and that Latham’s Lanius robustus was founded on a painting of 
the Little Cuckoo-Shrike, and that consequently it would be usable for that 
species and not for the present one. Later I recognised that Ellis’s painting 
should be considered and found that Latham’s description above noted was 
based on it, a point which Sharpe had not investigated. Consequently, as 
it was the oldest, the Ellis painting being made in 1777, Gmelin’ s name became 
valid for the species. 
VOL. IX. 
113 
