172 MDSCICAPID.E. 



also extends along the outer web of the outermost feather. The wing measurement given 

 by Vigors and Horsfield'^ of the type of M. bicolor, which was obtained at Prospect Hill, 

 near Sydney, is ^Yi inches. Undoubtedly when examples from North-western Australia are 

 compared with others obtained in cool districts in the south-eastern portions of the continent, 

 the former would be regarded as a smaller race of M. bicolor. As I have previously pointed 

 out, however, when a large number of specimens from different parts of the continent are 

 examined, the two races will be found, as regards size, to completely intergrade one with 

 the other. 



In New South Wales the Hooded Robin frequents open forest and partially cleared 

 lands, mountain ranges, and belts of timber growing on the plains. I found it exceedingly 

 common in the open pine scrubs in the neighbourhood of Wellington and Dubbo, and it may 

 be met with throughout the Blue Mountains. Near Sydney it breeds on the flats and open 

 forest lands between the Nepean River and Parramatta, and occasionally at Belmore, the 

 nearest locality I have found it to the coast. Of unobtrusive habits and of feeble powers of 

 song, one's attention is generally arrested by the conspicuous black and white plumage of the 

 male, for it is usually met with in pairs. 



The food of this species consists principally of various kinds of insects, of which a great 

 portion is obtained upon the ground. 



The nest is an open cup-shaped structure, formed externally of strips of bark and dried 

 grasses, held together with a slight addition of cobwebs, and is usually lined with fine wiry 

 grasses and rootlets. The outer portion of the nest varies according to its position; when built 

 between the junction of a horizontal fork only the rim is visible, but when placed in an upright 

 fork the exposed parts of it are sometimes ornamented with strips of bark longitudinally 

 attached by means of cobwebs, in a similar manner to the decorations of some nests of 

 Eopsaltria aiistralis. A neat and well formed nest, taken at Belmore on the 14th August, 1899, 

 measures externally three inches and a quarter in diameter by two inches and a quarter in 

 depth, the inner cup measuring two inches and a quarter in diameter by one inch and a 

 quarter in depth. It was built in the fork of a Melaleuca, close to where an upright branch had 

 been cut o(T, and contained two fresh eggs. Another nest, now before me, taken by Mr. E. H. 

 Lane at Wambangalang, is built in the fork of a fallen branch, and is further supported by 

 another branch crossing the fork near its junction. This nest was two feet and a half from 

 the ground. Usually they are made to resemble the roughened bark on which they are 

 placed, and are built at an altitude varying from two to twelve feet. At Yultacowie Creek, 

 about one hundred and twenty miles north-west of Port Augusta, Dr. A. M. Morgan found 

 on the nth August, 1900, a nest of this species containing two eggs, built in the debris left by 

 floods near the bank of the creek. 



Eggs usually two, rarely three in number for a sitting, oval or elongate oval in form, 

 the shell being close-grained, smooth, and lustrous. They vary from a very pale olive to 

 asparagus and apple-green, and are usually more or less clouded with rich brown, particularly 

 on the larger end where a perfect cap or zone is sometimes formed. INIany specimens are 

 uniform in colour, others have the ground colour darker on the larger end. A set of two, 

 taken at Belmore, measures: — Length (A) 0-87 x 0-56 inches; (B) 0-87 x 0-64 inches. Another 

 set, taken near Bourke, measures: — (A) o-8 x o-6 inches; (B) 078 x o-6 inches. These 

 latter eggs agree in size with others taken by Mr. G. A. Keartland in North-western 

 Australia. 



Young males resemble the adult female, but have the upper parts more strongly washed 

 with grey; scapulars dull white with blackish-grey centres; chin, throat, and fore-neck, dull 



• Trans. Linn. Soc, Vol. xv., p. 234 (1826). 



