THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
beak. It is easy in these treeless gullies to follow its flight with the eye, and 
eventually to locate the nest. During building operations the birds seem to 
lose all suspicion, and I have watched operations from a distance of only a very 
few feet. I find the intensity of the striations of the breast varies somewhat. 
What I take to be old males are the most marked. In the female they are 
sometimes very faint, but I could still detect traces in the only pah’ of nestlings 
I was able to examine.” 
Hall had remarked upon Rogers’ specimens that one adult (female) had 
a rich yellowish throat, chest and breast, with only an indistinct trace of 
lines upon portions of them. They seem to have disappeared with age; yet 
this specimen has the basal half of the lower mandible pale yellow, with the 
distal portion nutty-brown as on the upper mandible. Nestlings have pale 
yellowish-brown bills and bright yellow gapes. 
Macgillivray has recorded it from Queensland, writing: “ First noted 
on the 21st April, 1910, on a turpentine and spinifex ridge at Courtenay’s 
Creek, three miles from Cloncurry, and afterwards found to be very numerous 
in this class of country. Also frequently met with at Donaldson, on the 
Leichhardt, on stony ridges clothed in stunted trees and shrubs.” 
Captain S. A. White has mitten: “ Fairly numerous in the Musgrave 
and Everard Ranges. The whole of the plumage, especially the yellow on 
breast and throat, is much brighter than that of the birds from the type 
locality.” 
Campbell has observed: “ Coongan or Marble Bar birds appear the 
same as those from the more central (type) locality. Some Western individuals 
may be paler in colour, but not paler than North’s original figure. For 
instance one (?) taken on the Coongan agrees with Mathews’s mungi .” 
This bird was named by North from specimens collected by the Horn 
Scientific Expedition in Central Australia, and Carter’s birds previously 
procured were recognised as the same. When I drew up my t- Reference 
List ” in 1912 I arranged : 
Ptilotis keartlandi keartlandi North. 
Central Australia. 
Ptilotis keartlandi mungi Mathews. 
Differs from P. k. keartlandi in its paler coloration above and below, 
especially on the head. Mungi, North-west Australia. 
Interior of North-west Australia. 
Ptilotis keartlandi alexandrensis Mathews. 
'Differs from P. k. mungi in its less yellow coloration below. Alexandra, 
Northern Territory.” 
Interior of Northern Territory. 
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