  Graucalus tenuirostris, Jard. and Selb. Ill. Orn., vol. ii. pl. 114. Ceblepyris Jardinii, RÜpp. Mon. in Orn. Misc. 1839, p. 30. The only parts of Australia wherein this species has been observed are Moreton Bay and the Liverpool Range in New South Wales, and the neighbourhood of Port Essington in the Cobourg Peninsula on the north coast: it is likely that it ranges over the whole of the intermediate country, but this can only be determined by future research. The great difference in the colouring of the sexes, its smaller size and more attenuated bill, point out most clearly that it is a member of the genus Campephaga, and not of Graucalus, to which it was first assigned. It is far less common in New South Wales than it is at Port Essington, where Mr. Gilbert collected the following notes respecting it:— “This bird is extremely shy and retiring in its habits. I have never seen it flying about the low shrubs like the other species of the genus, nor at any time near the ground; on the contrary, it always inhabits the topmost branches of the loftiest and most thickly-foliaged trees growing in the immediate vicinity of swamps, or the mangroves. Its note too is altogether different from that of any other species of the genus, being a harsh, grating, buzzing tone, repeated rather rapidly about a dozen times in succession, followed by a lengthened interval. It appears to be a solitary species, as I never saw more than one at a time.” The stomach is muscular, and the food consists of insects of all kinds, but principally coleoptera. The adult male has the lores black; all the upper and under surface, wing-coverts, edges of the primaries and secondaries, basal three-fourths of the two central and the tips of the outer tail-feathers deep blue-grey; primaries, secondaries and the other parts of the tail black; irides dark brown; bill blackish brown; legs and feet very dark greenish grey. The female has the whole of the upper surface, wings and tail brown, the two latter edged with buff; line over the eye and all the under surface buff, the feathers of the side of the neck, the breast and the flanks with an arrow-head-shaped mark of brown in the centre. The young male is bluish brown above; wings and tail as in the female; under surface buff, crossed with numerous transverse narrow irregular bars of black. The figures represent an adult and a young male of the natural size. CAMPEPHAGA KARU. |
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