The male has the crown of the head, lores, line beneath the eye, ear-coverts, and a crescent-shaped mark from the latter across the breast deep black; throat, within the black, white; back of the neck, a narrow line down each side of the chest behind the black crescent, and all the under surface gamboge-yellow; back and upper tail-coverts yellowish olive; wing-coverts blackish brown, margined with yellowish olive; primaries and secondaries blackish brown, margined with greyish olive; basal half of the tail grey, apical half blackish brown tipped with grey; irides dark brown; bill black; legs and feet blackish grey.
The female has the whole of the upper surface and tail greyish brown; primaries and secondaries brown, margined with grey; throat pale brown freckled with white; remainder of the under surface pale brown, passing into deep buff on the abdomen.
The Plate represents the two sexes of the natural size.
PACHYCEPHALA GLAUCURA: Gould.
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith. Hullmandel & Walton Imp.
PACHYCEPHALA GLAUCURA, Gould.
Grey-tailed Pachycephala.
Pachycephala glaucura, Gould, in Proc. of Zool. Soc., March 25, 1845.
Pe-dil̈-me-dung, Aborigines of the lowland districts of Western Australia.
Although the present bird is very nearly allied to the P. gutturalis, it may be readily distinguished from that species by its larger size, by its shorter and more robust bill, by the uniform grey colouring of its tail, and by the lighter and more washy tint of the yellow of the under surface. Van Diemen’s Land and the islands in Bass’s Straits are the only countries in which it has yet been discovered, and where it takes the place of the P. gutturalis, which latter species appears to be exclusively confined to the Australian continent.
The P. glaucura frequents the vast forests of Eucalypti that cover the greater part of Van Diemen’s Land, and although it is rather thinly dispersed, is to be met with in every variety of situation, the crowns of the hills and the deep and most secluded gulleys being alike visited by it. It frequently descends to the ground in search of insects, but the leafy branches of the trees, particularly those of a low growth, are the situations to which it gives the preference.