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TIMELllD.E 



/"T^IIE Yellow-throated Scrub-Wren is distributed in favourable situations throughout the 

 -L coastal districts of the greater portion of Eastern Queensland and Eastern New South 

 Wales. It is represented in the Australian Museum collection by skins obtained as far north as 

 the Bloomfield River District, by numerous examples from the Cairns and Herberton Districts, 

 Queensland, and by others procured as far south as the Illawarra District of New South Wales. 

 It is usually met with in pairs, searching for insects in the bed of a creek, on logs, or 

 among fallen leaves. The female is of a tame and fearless disposition, often building her 

 nest within a few yards of an intruder. Seldom, except for the purposes of nest-building does 

 this species perch in trees. It utters a pleasing and ricli clear note, which may be heard 

 some distance away. 



Individual variation exists in the colour of this species. Some specimens ha\e the fore- 

 neck entirely yellow like the throat, others have the sides of the breast more strongly washed 

 with olive-brown. Compared with examples obtained in New South Wales, adult males from 

 the Bloomfield River and Herbert River Districts, North-eastern Queensland, have the median 

 and greater wing-coverts more distinctly margined with yellow, the edges of the outer webs of 

 the primaries a deeper yellow and the secondaries a richer olive-brown. The average wing- 

 measurement of birds from these parts is 2'55 

 inches, but it \aries from 2'5 to 2-7 inches. 

 The average wing-measurement of adult males 

 obtained by me at Ourimbah, New South 

 Wales, is i"j inches. 



In New South Wales it is essentially an 

 inhabitant of the rich brushes of the coastal 

 districts, and the secluded valleys of the con- 

 tiguous humid mountain-ranges. In favourable 

 situations, wherever palms and cycads flourish, 

 this species is found. It haunts the sides of 

 creek banks and leaf-strewn open mossy glades, 

 sheltered above with a thick umbrageous 

 growth. Although abundantly distributed just 

 beyond the northern and southern boundaries of the County of Cumberland, it is only found in 

 a few places towards the northern and southern boundaries of it, chiefly about Narrabeen 

 Lagoon and the Cabbage palm scrubs near Lily \'ale, Otford, and liuHi. It is plentiful at 

 Gosford and Ourimbah, on the northern side of the Hawkesbury River, and is freely distributed 

 in similar situations throughout the Illawarra I^istrict, in the south-eastern portion of the State. 



The nests are large, bulky pear-shaped or domed structures, with an entrance in the lower 

 portion more or less protected by a hood. Hxternally they are formed of rootlets, skeletons of 

 leaves, and mosses intermingled together, and lined inside at the bottom with feathers. When 

 they are built in the brush, tiiey are usually thickly coated externally with mosses, but seldom 

 have this outer covering when overhanging w-ater, and then resemble more a mass of debris 

 attached to an overhanging branch. An average nest measures externally twelve inches in length 

 by six inches in breadth, and across the entrance one inch and a quarter; but they vary much 

 in size, and frequently from nine to twelve inches of nesting material may be built around a 

 branch before the domed portion is commenced. They are attached near the ends of drooping 

 leafy branches, at an altitude varying from two to forty feet. More often they are built in trees 

 or vines overhanging water, frequently five or six feet above the surface, sometimes as low 

 as two feet, and rarely higher than twelve feet when placed in this situation. Little or no 

 preference seems to be shown in the selection of a tree as a nesting-site, but I have in\ariably 

 noticed that they are built higher in the forest than when overhanging water. 



YKLLOVV-TIIROATKD SCRUR-WRKN'. 



