PCECILODRYAS. 177 



almost white in the centre of the abdomen.- uncle)- tail-coverts light fawn colour; hill black: legs and 

 feet dark greyish-brown. Total length 6 inches, wing 3-5, tail ^'-i"-'), bill l)-57, tarsus OSo. 



Adult feimale — Similar in plumage to the male. 



Z>w<fi6u<io?i.— North-western Australia, Northern Territory of South Austraha. 

 /"Tl^VHlS very distinct species was discovered by the late Mr. M. Elsey, who was Surgeon 

 -L and Naturalist attached to the Exploring Expedition in Northern and North-western 

 Australia, under the command of IVIr. A. C. Gregory. Writing of this species from the 

 Victoria River Depot, in June, 1856, Mr. Elsey remarks:^" It lives in the mangroves, and 

 may be recognised at all times by its pretty little piping note. I found it nesting in November, 

 and again in February and March; the nest is an open, shallow, slightly constructed one; the 

 ecrcrg two in number, dull greenish-grey, speckled with brown, mostly at the larger end." 



Specimens were obtained by Mr. E. J. Cairn and the late Mr. T. H. Bowyer-Bower at 

 Derby, North-western Australia, in 1886, and Mr. G. A. Keartland shot several birds in the 

 same locality during the stay there of the Calvert Exploring Expedition. 



Adult males from Derby, North-western Australia, have the upper parts, wings, and tail 

 slightly duller in colour than an example obtained on the Daly River, in the Northern Territory 

 of South .\ustralia. A male from Derby, in not quite adult plumage, has the apical portion 

 of the outer webs and tips of the outer secondaries more broadly margined with white, the 

 innermost secondaries are brown, the lateral tail feathers have smaller white tips, and the 

 central pair only a dull white spot near the end of the shaft. The wing-measurement of adult 

 males varies from 3-35 to 3-55 inches. 



Mr. G. A. Keartland has kindly favoured me with the following noies:^" Pcecilodryas 

 ccrviniventyis I found generally in pairs amongst the dense mangrove thickets on the margin of 

 the Fitzroy River in North-western Australia. In habits it bears a strong resemblance to 

 Eopsaltria austi'alis, hopping over the ground, or clinging to the trunk of a tree whilst it extracts 

 insects from crevices in the bark, then flying to a neighbouring branch and perching in an 

 erect attitude, but with the wings slightly drooping and the tail in a nearly horizontal position. 

 These Robins are very tame and easily approached. I saw a pair feeding two young ones 

 which were unable to fly, and although I was standing within six yards of them, the old birds 

 continued to supply their wants regardless of my presence. The sexes are alike in plumage, 

 and the young ones present but slight variation from their parents." 



Mr. Charles French, Junr., received a nest and two eggs of this species, together with a 

 skin of the bird that was procured near the Daly River, in the Northern Territory of South 

 Australia. These Mr. French kindly sent me for description, and presented the skin and nest 

 to the Trustees of the Australian Museum. The nest is a thick-rimmed shallow cup-shaped 

 structure, externally formed of thin plant-stalks and fine spiral vine tendrils, the inside being 

 lined with a few dried grass stems and a quantity of black vegetable fibre resembling horse- 

 hair. It averages externally three inches in diameter by one inch and three-quarters in depth, 

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

 and was built at the junction of a forked horizontal branch of a mangrove. The eggs are oval 

 in form, the shell being close-grained, smooth, and lustreless. They are of a faint yellowish- 

 green ground colour, one specimen having a band of confluent blotches around the thicker end 

 of pale ochraceous-brown and dull chestnut-red; the other has the markings, which are of a 

 rich purplish-red, smaller and more evenly distributed over the surface of the shell, also a few 

 underlying spots of nuicli paler shades of the same colour :— Length (A) 075 x 0-58 inches; 

 (B) 072 X 0-6 inches. Another nest recently received from Mr. French, that was taken in the 

 same locality, is a flimsily built structure, formed of thin plant stems, lined with dried grasses, 

 and is placed in a three-pronged and nearly upright fork at the end of a thin branch. It 

 contained two eggs somewhat similar to those previously described, but much duller in colour, 



