ACROCEPIIALUS. 



241 



Acrocephalus gouldi. 



WESTERN REED-WAKBLEK. 

 Calamoherpe lonc/irostris, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1845, p. 20; id., Haudbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., 



p. 403 (1865). 

 Acrocephalus longirostris, Gould, Bds. Austr., fol., Vol. IT!., pi. 38 (1848); Seebohm, Cat. Bds. 



Brit. Mus., Vol. v., p. 99 (1881). 

 Acrocephalus gonldi, Dubois, Nouv. Man. d'Orn., Ft. VI., p. .3G9 (1901). 



Adult male — General colour above brown washed with rufescent faivti colour, which is more 

 pronounced on the lower hack, rump, and upper tail-coverts ; quills and upper iving-coverts brouyyi, 

 externally margined tvith rufous-fawn colour; tail feathers brown with narrotv indistinct rufous- 

 brown edges; a stripe extending from the nostril over the eye fawn colour; sides of the neck and 

 all the binder surface faivn colour, which is deeper in tint on the sides of the body, the abdomen 

 and under tail-coverts, and passing into dull white on the throat and centre of the lower breast; bill 

 brown, the under mandible yellowish-horn colour. Total length 6:5 inches, wing 2-8o, tail 2-6, bill 

 0'65, tarsus 1. 



Adult fkmale — Similar in plumage to the male. 

 Distribution. — Western and North-western Australia. 

 /"I^HIS species is an inhabitant of the western and north-western portions of the continent. 

 1 It may be distinguished from Acrocephalus australis principally by its darker coloured 



plumage, and slightly longer bill. Specimens in the Australian Museum collection were 

 obtained by Mr. George ]\Iasters at King George's Sound in March, 1869, and by the late 

 Mr. T. H. Bowyer-Bower at Derby, North-western Australia, in 1886. Mr. Tom Carter, 

 writing me from Point Cloates, North-western Australia, remarks: — "1 saw several birds, 

 which I took to be Acrocephalus longirostris, in dense rushes growing on the edge of a pool at 

 Winning, fifty miles inland from here, in June, 1900, but failed to secure a specimen. In 

 March, 1902, I shot a moulting or immature male of this species in dense reeds on the side 

 of another pool. It was uttering notes resembling the gurgling song of the Spiny-cheeked 

 Honey-eater, and like the birds first met with, it was only seen with great difficulty." A nest 

 and set of two eggs of a Reed Warbler, probably referrable to this species, has also been 

 sent me for e.xamination by Mr. C. French, Junr., taken on the Daly River in the Northern 

 Territory of South .\ustralia on the ist February, 1902. 



Relative to the Western Reed Warbler, the following are Gilbert's notes, quoted by 

 Gould -^ : — " It is to be found in all the dense reed-beds bordering the river and lakes around 

 Perth, but it is so shy that it scarcely ever shows itself above the reeds. I have remarked also 

 that it never wanders many yards from the nest, which is placed in four or five upright reeds 

 growing in the water, at about two feet from the surface. It is of a deep cup-shaped form, and 

 is composed of the soft skins of reeds and dried rushes. The breeding season comprises the 

 months of August and September. The eggs are four in number, of a dull greenish-white, 

 blotched all over, but particularly at the larger end, with large and small irregularly-shaped 

 patches of olive, some being darker than the others, the lighter coloured ones appearing as if 

 beneath the surface of the shell; they are three-quarters of an inch in length by five-eights of 

 an inch in breadth. It sings both night and day, and its strain is more beautiful and melodious 

 than that of any other Australian bird with which I am acquainted, being in many parts very 

 like to that of the far-famed Nightingale of Europe." 



According to Canon Tristramt and the late Mr. H. Seebohm, all the species of Tatare 

 should be included in the genus Acrocephalus. In the fifth volume of the "Catalogue of Birds in 



• Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. i., p. 403 (1865). 

 t "The Ibis," 1883, p. 38. 



