_J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _Hullmandel & Walton Imp._
]
CAMPEPHAGA JARDINII.
Jardine’s Campephaga.
_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.
[Illustration: