Order PASSERIFORMES. 
No. 564. 
Family SYLVIIDJE. 
STIPITURUS RUPICEPS. 
RUFOUS-CROWNED EMU-WREN. 
(Plate 465, top left-hand figure.)* 
Stipiturus ruficeps Campbell, Victorian Naturalist, Vol. XV., p. 116, Jan. 12th, 1899: 
North-west Cape, Mid-west Australia. 
Stipiturus ruficeps Campbell, Victorian Naturalist, Vol. XV., p. 116, Jan. 12th, 1899: North- 
west Cape, Mid-west Australia ; id., Ibis, 1899, p. 399, pi. vn. ; Hall, Key Birds 
Austr., p. 23, 1899 ; Campbell, Nests and Eggs Austr. Birds, Vol. I., p. 217, 1901 ; 
Carter, Emu, Vol. I., p. 56, 1902 (N.W. Cape) ; id., ib., Vol. III., p. 36, 1903, id. ; 
Mathews, Hand! Birds Austral., p. 79, 1908 ; Whitlock, Emu, Vol. IX., p. 201, 1910 ; 
H. L. White, ib., Vol. XVII., p. 39, 1917 (M.W.A.). 
Stipiturus malachurus ruficeps Mathews, Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., p. 363, 1912 ; id. . List 
Birds Austr., p. 230, 1913. 
Distribution. — North-west Cape, Mid-west Australia. 
Adult male. Crown of head, nape, and hinder-face cinnamon-rufous ; mantle and back 
dark brown, or blackish with drab-grey margins to the feathers ; upper wing- 
coverts cinnamon with dark shaft-lines to some of the feathers ; flight-quills hair- 
br wn margined with rufous, or cinnamon on the outer webs and also on some 
of the inner ones ; tail like other forms ; rictal bristles white at the base and black 
at the tips, somewhat numerous, but only feebly developed ; lores and sides of 
face, including the eye, blue with bright shaft-lines to the feathers ; chin, throat, 
and fore-neck lavender-blue with black bases to some of the feathers on the last ; 
breast, abdomen, sides of body, axillaries, under wing-coverts, and inner margins 
of quills below cinnamon-buff, remainder of quill-lining hair-brown. Culmen 8 mm. ; 
wing 40, tarsus 16. Figured. Collected at Yardie Creek, North-west Cape, 
Mid- west Australia, on the 12th of April, 1899, and is Stipiturus ruficeps Campbell. 
Adult female. Differs in lacking the blue on the throat and ear-coverts, these parts 
being buff. 
Adult female. Crown of head and nape rufous, which encroaches more or less on to the 
sides of the neck ; sides of face blackish streaked with white ; eye-ring white ; a 
small dark spot in front of the eye ; rictal bristles black ; back blackish, the feathers 
broadly margined with drab-grey and have dusky-black bases ; rump and upper 
tail-coverts hazel ; lesser upper wing-coverts cinnamon, the median and greater 
series similar, but have dark elongated centres to the feathers like the bastard- wing ; 
flight- quills dark hair-brown with ferruginous margins ; tail-feathers also dark 
hair-brown ; chin and throat pale cinnamon-buff with blackish bases to the feathers, 
* The Plate is lettered Stipiturus malachurus. 
146 
