254 SYLVIID^, 



Subsequently Mr. Carter forwarded an adult male, obtained by him at Point Cloates on 

 the 2oth February, 1902, to Dr. Sclater, who made critical remarks on the allied genera 

 ScJta'nicola and Emnioynis, and published a beautifully coloured plate of Eremioiitis cavtcri in 

 "The Ibis."* A figure, showing the abnormally long under tail coverts is also given on 

 page 609. 



The slender bill, short tarsi, small feet, and long upper and under tail-coverts which 

 conceal the greater portion of the broad tail feathers, will distinguish it from any other 

 Australian genus. 



The following information relati\e to this species has been kindly sent me by IMr. T. 

 Carter from time to time: — '' Ercmioniis cavtcri is fairly common on the North-west Cape 

 peninsula. I have seen it both on barren spinifex ranges and on good feeding grassy flats. I 

 have, however, met with it mostly in dense scrub between the range and the sea, but never 

 saw it south of Yardie Creek, although the country is similar on both sides of it. During a 

 trip up north in October, 1900, I shot four from the buggy while driving through scrub, and I 

 saw several more. Upon dissecting them I found that they were all males and had apparently 

 just finished breeding. The stomachs contained the remains of insects, principally small black 

 beetles, but in one of them I found a grass-hopper an inch long. I have only heard these birds 

 utter a short 'chat chat.' When disturbed it rarely flies for more than about twenty or thirty 

 yards, a weak fluttering flight, with the tail feathers expanded, then down it goes into cover 

 again and skulks through the scrub. It lies very close after being once flushed, and can conceal 

 itself under the smallest cover. One fired at and wounded sought refuge under a small scrubby 

 bush, bordered around with a little spinifex and a few dead leaves. These I removed until I 

 came to the last remaining branch of the shrub, under which the winged bird, hard pressed to 

 the ground, was discovered. On pulling the branch up, it fluttered away for a short distance 

 but was soon captured. A nest, which I believe belonged to this species, I found when 

 driving, by flushing a bird out of a species of salt-bush. On going to the bush I had seen it 

 leave, I found a deep open nest built among the twigs, about a foot from the ground. It was 

 irregularly formed throughout of dried grasses and fibre, and had no special lining. The inside 

 of the structure contained a few fallen dead salt-bush leaves, and numerous elytrje of a species 

 of small black beetle. Young birds had apparently but recently left the nest." 



Megalurus galactotes. 



TAWNY UKASS-BIKD. 

 Malurus galactotes, Temm., Planch. Col., Tom. I., pi. Gf), fig. 1 (1823). 

 Sphenceacus galactotes, Gould, Bds. Austr., fol., Vol. III., pi. 35 (1848); id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., 



Vol. I., p. 399 (1865). 

 Megalurus galactotes, Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. VII., p. 127 (1883); North, Proc. Linn. 



See. KS.W., 2nd ser., Vol. X., p. 217 (1895). 

 Adult male — Forehead, crown of the head and nape rufous, indistinctly streaked with dusky - 

 brown; upper portions of the back ashy-brown washed with fulvous, and having black centres to the 

 feathers; lower back, rump, and upper tail-coverts rich fulvous-broivn, some of the longer tail-coverts 

 having black shaft-streaks; upper wing-coverts fidvous-brown, the lesser and median series with 

 indistinct black shaft-streaks, and the greater coverts, which are richer in colour, with broad black 

 centres; quills brown externally margined on their outer webs with fulvous-brown, the innermost 



• •■ The Ibis," 1902, p. 608, pi. xiv. 



