PETROJCA. 167 



The notes of the Flame-breasted Robin are more musical and prolonged than those of its 

 con<rener Pdraca lef^gii. Dr. L. Holden, writing from Circular Head, Tasmania, in August, 



1887, states: "The note of Pdvceca phanicea is a song of nine inflections, uttered in groups 



of three, thus: 'you-may-come, if-you-will, to-the-sea.' They sing it perched on rails, bushes, 

 or stones, but not, I think, when merely seeking food on the ground. I have heard the same 

 song from fully plumaged males, and from females or young birds without any red on the 

 breast." From Waratah, Mount Bischoff, Tasmania, where these birds are extremely common, 

 Mr. R. N. Atkinson writes: — "The note of the Flame-breasted I^obin is a very sweet little 

 trill, and it often sounds to me as if it were saying, 'you are not— a pretty little bird — like me.' 

 Both sexes have the same notes, except that the female utters a kind of hiss when one 

 approaches her while sitting on her nest." 



The food of this species consists of insects of various kinds, grubs, and worms, which it 

 procures chiefly on the ground. 



The nest is exteriorly formed of \ery fine strips of soft bark, fern down, and grasses, 

 thickly coated with dry mosses or spider webs; the inside, which is cup-shaped and neatly 

 made, being thickly lined with cow-hair, opossum fur, or the brown downy covering from 

 freshly budded fern-fronds. When built in the neighbourhood of houses, pieces of cotton, 

 silk, or string frequently form portion of the lining. At all times, whether constructed inside 

 the charred trunk of a tree or in exposed situations, the outer portion of the nest is made to 

 closely resemble its immediate surroundings. An average nest measures externally four inches 

 in diameter by two inches and a quarter in height, the inner cup being two inches across by 

 one inch and a half in depth. .Vnother nest now before me, taken from a charred trunk of a 

 tree, resembles in form a half cocoa-nut shell with the rounded side uppermost, and in which 

 is a small cup-like cavity at the top. It is formed externally of very fine dried mosses and 

 strips and shreds of bark, which are thickly coated with blackened spiders' webs, assimilating 

 closely in colour to the place where it was built. The inner portion of the nest and its 

 foundation consists of the soft downy covering of the freshly budded fronds of a tree-fern. 

 It measures across the base, where it is nearly flat, four inches and a half, with a depth of 

 three inches: the internal diameter is one inch and three-quarters, with a depth of one inch and 

 a half. The site usually selected by the bird for its nest is between a projecting piece of bark 

 and the side of a tree or stump, or in the burnt -out trunk of a hollow tree, and sometimes on 

 the ledge of an embankment or in the end of a hollow log. As a rule, when built in trees, the 

 are placed from five to twenty feet from the ground, seldom higher. 



Mr. R. N. Atkinson, from whom a nest and several sets of the eggs of this species have 

 been received, informs me that on two occasions upon taking nests with only two eggs m each, 

 he has, upon visiting the places again, obtained a third egg from the bare hole where the nest 

 had been previously built. 



From Dr. L. Holden's MS. notes, made at Circular Head, on the north-western coast of 

 Tasmania, I extract the following:— "On the 12th November, 1890, I found a nest of the 

 Flame-breasted Robin, with three eggs, built on the side of a bank above a steep road at 

 Greenhills. Although the bank was bare of herbage, and I was close by when the female flew 

 off, I stared at the nest some seconds before I discerned it, so exactly did it resemble a lichen- 

 covered stone. On the 7th October, 1891, I took another set of eggs from a nest built on the 

 same bank, and from the same pair of birds took a set of three eggs a fortnight later. The 

 nest-hole was among grass and not on the bare earth bank just below it. I saw a pair on 

 the i2th December, i8gi, building in a she-oak at the edge of the beach. The nest was at the 

 extremity of a bough, about five feet from the ground, and was the first of this species I had 

 seen in such a situation. In September, 1893, I found a nest with three hard-set eggs in a 

 stone wall, on a farm at Greenhills." 



