MACHAERIRHYNCHUS FLAVIVENTER, Goud.

Yellow-breasted Flycatcher.

Macherirhynchus flaviventer, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., December 10, 1850.

 

A SINGLE specimen of this extraordinary form is all that has come under my notice; it was collected at
Cape York in Northern Australia, and now forms part of the Collection of the Zoological Society of London,
to whom it was presented by the late Captain Owen Stanley, R.N. All that is known respecting it is
comprised in the following note communicated to me by Mr. MacGillivray :—

“A single specimen only of this Flycatcher was procured, during our last visit to Cape York. It was
shot by Mr. James Wilcox, who was employed by the late Captain Stanley to procure specimens of natural
history for the Norwich and Ipswich Museums, and to whose zeal and industry as a collector I was often
much indebted. He told me that he observed it on the skirts of one of the dense brushes or jungles,
making short flights in the air, snapping at passing flies, and returning again to the same tree, the Wormia
alata of botanists, distinguished by its red papery bark, large glossy leaves and handsome yellow flowers,
which attract numbers of insects. The place was frequently visited afterwards, but no other example was
seen.”

Crown of the head, lores, ear-coverts, wings and tail black ; wing-coverts tipped with white; secondaries
margined with white; outer tail-feathers margined on the apical portion of the external web, and largely
tipped with white, the white becoming less and less, until only a slight trace of it is found on the central
feathers; back olive-black ; throat white; line from the nostrils over each eye, and the breast, abdomen,
and under tail-coverts bright yellow; bill black; feet bluish black.

The figures are of the natural size.