174 MUSCICAPID.E. 



F'rom Dr. L. Holden's MS. notes, made while resident at Circular Head, Tasmania, I 

 have e.xtracted the following information: — '-On the 29th August, 1886, I found a nest ot 

 Amaiirodryas vittata, containing one egg. It was a round open structure, formed of twigs and 

 bark, and lined with wool, and was built in the central fork of a thorny bush about four feet 

 from the ground. On the jth October I found another with three eggs. This nest was lined 

 with horse and cow-hair. As I approached it, the bird tlew off feigning lameness. Similar 

 tactics were adopted by another bird whose nest I found with three half-grown young on the 

 31st .\ugust, 1887. The bush this nest was built in. was the same that the birds bred in two 

 years before. The following week I found another with young, and on the 14th October 

 a nest with three hard set eggs. On the 5th August, 1888, I discovered a nest with three 

 fresh eggs close to the one I found in the same month of the preceding year. These birds 

 utter a loud disyllabic note: a rather long drawn and somewhat plaintive call. When one 

 approaches near their nests, they usually feign lameness or a broken wing." 



Mr. E. D. .\tkinson, while living at Table Cape, on the north-western coast of Tasmania, 

 forwarded me three sets of eggs. One was taken on the 12th November, 1891, from a 

 nest built in a '-chip-hole" in the trunk of a tree in his paddock; three fresh eggs being 

 taken, on the 25th December following, from another nest built in the same place. With 

 another set of three, taken on the i6th November, he writes: — "There were fi\e nests all built 

 on top of one another, and looked like so many basins packed up. They were placed in an 

 old dead stump, which had probably been used by the same pair of birds as a nesting-site for 

 several seasons. This bird resorts to the usual device of many species in feigning a broken 

 leg or wing when its nest is approached, with the object of alluring one away from it." 



Mr. R. N. Atkinson informs me that the Dusky Robin is fairly numerous on Mount 

 Bischoff, and that it usually frequents the cleared spaces around the edge of the forest. It 

 builds on the side of a stump, sometimes in the end of a log, and not infrequently in a tree 

 some height from the ground. A nest now before me, taken by him at Waratah on the 

 20th October, 1899, from the side of a stump, is a cup-shaped structure, rather irregularly 

 formed e.xternally of fibrous rootlets, with which is intermingled a few strips of bark and 

 very fine dried grasses, the whole being lined with a mixture of very fine rootlets, opossum 

 fur, and black horsehair. Its average measurements externally are four inches in diameter by 

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

 in depth. 



The eggs are usually three in number for a sitting, and resemble those oi Mdanodryas bicolor. 

 They are oval or elongate-oval in form, the shell being close-grained, smooth, and slightly 

 lustrous. In ground colour they vary from pale greenish-blue to apple-green, which is more 

 or less distinctly shaded witli brownish-olive, particularly on the larger end, where an indistinct 

 zone or cap is sometimes formed. Others have distinct spots, smudges, or clouded patches 

 varying in tint from dull reddish-brown to pale brownish-olive. A set of three, taken by 

 Dr. L. Holden at Circular Head, Tasmania, on the 4th October, 1891, measures as follows: — 

 Length (A) 0-93 x 07 inches ; (B) o-88 x o-66 inches; (C) o-88 x o-68 inches. A set of three, 

 taken by Mr. R.N. Atkinson, at Waratah, Mount Bischoff, in October, 1899, measures: — 

 (A) 0-84 X 0-63 inches; (B) 0-87 x 0-64 inches; (C) 0-87 x 0-63 inches. Another set from the 

 same locality measures: — (A) 0-9 x o-66 inches; (B) 0-93 x 0-7 inches; (C) 0-93 x o'68 inches. 



The usual breeding season of this species commences about the middle of July, and 

 continues until the end of December, during which time two or more broods are reared. 

 As will be seen from Dr. Holden's and Mr. Atkinson's notes, fresh eggs have been found 

 as early as the 5th August and as late as the 25th December. In the latter instance, 

 presumably the same pair of birds had been robbed of their eggs about the middle of 

 November. 



