262 TIMELIID.E. 



I have retained the original vernacular name of Streaked Warbler, bestowed by Latham 

 on this species in i8oi/'' Following his description he remarl-cs: — "Inhabits New South Wales 

 in July; is said to sing remarkably w-ell." 



It is a resident in New South \\'ales, and frequents chiefly the open forest and partially 

 cleared lands of the coastal districts. Inland it is generally found on the margins of cultivation 

 paddocks and pastoral lands. It is also common in lightly timbered mountain ranges, and there 

 are specimens in the Australian Museum collection, obtained at Lithgow at an elevation of over 

 2,000 feet. Near Sydney it is fairly numerous at Belmore, Enfield, and Blacktown, also in the 

 scrub and heather-lands about Sutherland and National Park. In March these birds assemble 

 in flocks from five to fifty or more in number, and may be generally met with searching for 

 insects and their larva; in the grass. They are very fearless and not easily disturbed, but when 

 put to flight generally seek refuge in the lower limbs of a small tree. Their notes, which are 

 very sweet, are succeeded by a short harsh grating twitter. 



The stomachs of these birds I have e.xamined usually contained insects and their larva', in 

 some 1 also found a few grass-seeds. 



The nest, a dome-shaped structure with an entrance in the side, is formed outwardly of 

 dried grasses, with which are intermingled a few fine strips of bark, and is slightly lined at the 

 bottom with either dowmy grass, seeds, fur, or feathers, or an admixture of these or other soft 

 materials. An average nest measures externally four inches and a half in diameter by three 

 inches and a quarter in height, and across the entrance one inch. It is built in a slight 

 depression in the ground, the entrance to the structure being well concealed and nearly on a 

 level with the surface. Usually it is surrounded WMth withered grass or herbage, but at 

 Belmore I have seen it constructed in a tuft of long rank green grass. Some I have found 

 were almost flat on the top, and it was difficult to distinguish them from the surrounding 

 withered grass. Mr. S. W. Moore found several of this type in September, 1896, in a paddock 

 at Blacktown, which, with the exception of a few stunted and dried grass tussocks, was devoid 

 of vegetation. One I found on the 19th October, 1898, at Koseville, in company with Mr. C. G. 

 Johnston, was built close to a well beaten path, and was sheltered only by a few straggling grasses 

 and a scanty bracken-fern. It contained two fresh eggs, and I would have passed it a hundred 

 times without discovering it had I not observed a bird leave the spot when we were about twenty 

 yards away. If the nest is handled, this species readily forsakes it, even when eggs are deposited. 

 The eggs are usually three, sometimes four in number for a sitting, rounded ovals or 

 broad ellipses in form, the shell being close-grained, smooth, and lustrous. They are of a 

 uniform bright chocolate-red, some specimens having a clouded indistinct cap or zone of a 

 darker shade of the ground colour on the larger end. A set of three, taken in the Richmond 

 River District, by Mr. P. Schraeder in September, 1888, measures: — Length (A) 072 x o-6 

 inches; (B) 077 x 0-62 inches; (C) 073 x o-6 inches. The nest from which this set was taken 

 also contained an egg of the Fan-tailed Cuckoo. A set of three, taken at Belmore, near 

 Sydney, in November, 1897, measures: — Length (A) 075x0-58 inches; (B) 076 x o-6 inches; 

 (C) 075 X 0-59 inches. 



Young birds resemble the adults in colour, but have the head of a duller brown and not so 

 distinctly streaked; there is a dull rufous-fawn eyebrow, and the blackish markings to the 

 feathers on the under surface are smaller and more tear-shaped in iorm. 



September and the three following months constitute the usual breeding season of this 

 species in New South Wales; but at Haslem's Creek, near Sydney, in company with Mr. 

 S. W. Moore, the latter found a nest built in a tuft of grass and ready for the reception of eggs 

 on the I St August, 1894. 



Lath. Gen. Syn. Bds., Suppl. II., p. 247 (1801). 



