Order PASSERIFORMES. 
No. 575. 
Family SYLY11DM. 
MAGNAMYTIS DOROTHEA. 
BLACK AND WHITE GRASS-WREN. 
(Plate 472, top figure.) 
Magnamytis woodwardi Dorothea Mathews, Austral Av. Ree., Vol. II., pt. 5, p. 99, 
Sept. 24th, 1914 : MacArthur River, Gulf of Carpentaria, Northern Territory. 
Magnamytis ivoodwardi dorothece Mathews, Austral. Av. Rec., Vol. II., pt. 5, p. 99, 1914. 
Amytornis woodwardi (?) Hill, Emu, Vol. XII., p. 258, 1913 ; Barnard, ib, , Vol. XIII., p. 188, 
1914 ; id., ib., Vol. XIV., p. 45, 1914 ; H. L. White, ib., p. 58. 
Magnamytis dorothece Mathews, Emu, Vol. XVI., p. 183, 1917. 
Distribution. MacArthur River, Gulf of Carpentaria, Eastern Northern Territory. 
Adult Male. Fore part of head and sides of face black with white shaft-lines to the feathers ; 
hinder crown, sides of neck, hind-neck, and upper back chestnut with white central 
streaks to the feathers, becoming uniform chestnut on the lower back, rump, and 
upper tail-coverts ; lesser upper wing-coverts similar to the back ; median and 
greater coverts broadty centred with black, lined with white, and margined with 
chestnut like the innermost secondaries ; flight-quills blackish-brown narrowly fringed 
with pale rufous on the outer webs and more broadly on the inner ones ; tail-feathers 
blackish more or less fringed with rufous ; rictal bristles black and directed laterally ; 
a streak from the lores to above the eye rufous ; a broad black moustachial streak ; 
chin, throat, and middle of breast white ; sides of body, abdomen, thighs, and under 
tail-coverts cinnamon ; under wing-coverts and margins of quills below pale rufous, 
remainder of quill-lining dark brown ; lower aspect of tail paler than its upper- 
surface, inclining to rufous, and with whitish shafts. Eyes rich brown, feet greyish- 
brown, bill dark brown, gape and base of lower mandible steel-blue. Total length 
170 mm. ; culmen 12, wing 66, tail 85, tarsus 24. Figured. Collected on the 
MacArthur River, Northern Territory, on the 24th of September, 1919. 
The Sexes are alike. 
Nest. A bulky dome-shaped structure (in shape much like a Finch’s), composed of the 
dry seed stems of spiniex and dry stringy-bark (eucalypt) leaves, lined with soft 
dead leaves of spinifex, the whole structure being well bedded into the top of a 
bunch of spinifex. 
Eggs. Clutch three. White with a faint pinkish shade marking scattered all over the 
surface, but more numerous at the larger end, being of brownish-red and mauve. 
19-21 mm. by 15. 
Breeding-season. January (MacArthur River, Northern Territory). 
The first note of this species seems to be the record by Hill: “ Amytornis 
woodwardi (?) (White-chested Grass- Wren). A species of Amytornis is fairly 
VOL. X. 
209 
