THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
now quite long, rest of growing plumage quite obscured by dense blackish- 
brown down ; bill of a greyish-brown. On November 26th the young had 
left the nest. It will be noted that the clutch was two, but in each case only 
one young hatched out.” 
Croll has recorded : “ At the head of a gully on the Blacks’ Spur, Heales- 
ville, Victoria, I had the pleasure of seeing openly not fewer than eight Coach- 
whip Birds ( Psophodes crepitans) in one group, and several of them making 
the call that gives them their name. Two (presumably males) were fighting 
fiercely ; the others provided an agitated audience. Owing to the fire, there 
was no cover, and every movement was visible. One fighter pursued the 
other from branch to branch of the bare saplings, and finally across the road, 
passing between another member of our party and myself. Their actions 
were very rapid, but it was possible to note the deep green of the plumage, 
the white cheek patches and the crest. The birds rested within ten feet of 
me, and in full view, and one gave the full whip call — the swing of the lash 
and the crack. Immediately one of the group left on the other side of the 
road (also in full view) added the jerky call that is sometimes heard from these 
birds. We stood between the producer of the first call and the producer of 
the second. I watched the one bird and my friend the other, and we saw 
them produce the notes. Again and again one or other of the birds called, and 
several times we witnessed the production of the notes. In every instance 
one bird was responsible for the whole of the call usually associated with the 
Coachwhip Bird — the lash and the crack — and another gave the rarer following 
note.” 
Captain S. A. White, reporting upon the birds of the Bunya Mountains, 
Queensland, observed : “ These familiar scrub-birds were plentiful, as one 
would expect in all the subtropical scrubs of the coastal belt. Their fine 
ringing calls and other strange notes greeted us morning and evening. Upon 
comparison the Bunya Mountains bird seems identical with the Victorian and 
New South Wales form, while the Mount Tambourine specimens show much 
more yellow in the green of the back, and the primaries are much browner, 
those of the former bird being black.” 
No subspecies were discriminated until North named a form from Boar 
Pocket, North Queensland, and this is remarkable for the fact that he named 
it trinomially, probably the only instance in his works. He named it 
P. crepitans lateralis, writing : “ Like Psophodes crepitans Gould, but differs 
in having the lateral feathers of the tail, which is shorter, tipped with pale 
brown instead of white. Moreover, the sides of the lower flanks are olive- 
green, whilst in P. crepitans they are ashy -brown. Total length 9.8 inch ; 
* wing 3.9, tail 5.4, bill 0.9, tarsus 1.3.” 
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