Order PASSERIFORMES. 
No. 28. 
Family MUSC1CAF1LJE. 
RHIPIDURA FLABELLIFERA. 
(PELZELNI.) 
NORFOLK ISLAND FANTAIL. 
(Plate 24.) 
Rhipidura Vigors and Horsfield, Trans. Linn. Soc. (Lond.), Vol. XV., p. 246, Feb. 17th, 1827. 
Type (by subsequent designation, Gray, 1840, p. 32) : Muscicapa flabellifera Gmelin. 
Ripidicala Boie, Ncues Staats Magazin (Schleswig), Vol. I., heft, ii, p. 489, 1832. Type (by 
subsequent designation, Mathews, List Birds Austr., p. 184, 1913): Muscicapa flabellifera 
Gmelin. 
Rhipidicidura “ Boie ” Gray, Handl. Gen. Sp. Birds, Brit. Mus., pt. i., p. 330, (before Feb. 2nd) 
1870, as synonym of Rhipidura Vigors and Horsfield. 
Muscicapa flabellifera Gmelin, Syst. Nat., Vol. I., pt. ii., p. 934, April 20th, 1789 : Dusky 
Sound, New Zealand. 
Rhipidura assimilis Pelzeln, Sitzungsb. Ak. der Wiss., Vol. XLI., p. 320, 1860 (after June 8th): 
Norfolk Island. Not of Gray, Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.), 1858, p. 176. 
Rhipidura pelzelni Gray, Ibis, July 1862, p. 226 : Norfolk Island. New name for assimilis 
Pelzeln ; Sharpe, Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., Vol. IV., p. 312, March 26th, 1879; Mathews, 
Handl. Birds Austr., p. 65, Jan. 1908. 
Rhipidura flabellifera pelzelni Mathews, Nov. Zool., Vol. XVIII., p. 449, Jan. 1912; id.. List 
Birds Austr., p. 323, Dec. 1913 ; id., Birds Austr., Vol. IX., pt. i., p. 16, Feb. 15th, 1921. 
Distribution. Norfolk Island. 
Adidt male. Entire upper-surface mouse-brown, darker on the top of the head; primaries 
similar in colour to the upper-parts ; middle pair of tail-feathers brownish-ash with 
horn-coloured shafts, outer pair of tail-feathers brownish-ash, with the margin of the outer 
web white and broadly tipped at the extremity with white and with the shafts ivory-white; 
chin and upper throat white with the bases black ; lower throat brownish-black; chest, 
breast and abdomen huffish ; under wing-coverts, axillaries and under tail-coverts whitish. 
Bill black, eyes dark brown, feet black. Total length 143 mm. : culmen 7, wing 69, tail 80, 
tarsus 20. Figured. Collected at Steels Point, Norfolk Island, on the 30th of October, 
1912. 
Adidt female. Similar to the adult male. Total length 138 mm.: culmen 7, wing 67, tail 78, 
tarsus 19. Collected at Steels Point, Norfolk Island, on the 11th of May, 1914. 
Immature. Fore-head, head and back of the neck, dark greyish-brown: scapulars and back 
dark grey washed with brownish-chestnut.: primaries and secondaries blackish-brown, 
slightly 7 paler on the margins of the inner web ; wing-coverts with large spots of pale buff 
at the extremity, forming a double wing-bar ; middle pair of tail-feathers uniform blackish- 
brown, with shafts glistening black ; remainder of the tail dark ash-brown, margined 
on both webs with greyish-white and broadly tipped with the same colour, shafts ivory- 
42 
