SERICORNIS. 305 



specimens collected by Mr. blasters at King George's Sound have the chest and breast pale 

 yellow, in others these parts are almost pure white. Those from Port Lincoln, South Australia, 

 have the upper surface less distinctly washed with olive, and the adult male procured by Dr. 

 Angove on Kangaroo Island has the general colour above tinged with dark ashy-grey, and 

 agrees more with the insular form described by Gould from Houtman's Abrolhos. 



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

 strips of bark, rootlets and grasses, warmly lined inside with feathers, and was placed in scrubby 

 undergrowth near the ground. The eggs are two or three in number for a sitting, oval in form, 

 the shell being close-grained, smooth, and lustrous. They vary from a faint buffy to a dull 

 greyish-white ground colour, which is minutely freckled and streaked with dark purple and 

 slaty-grey, the markings being more thickly disposed towards the larger end. They measure: — 

 Length (A) 078 x o- 5.). inches; (B) 0-79 x 0-55 inches; (C) 078 x 0-56 inches. A set of two, 

 taken by Mr. Masters at King George's Sound, in December, 1868, are of a greyish-white 

 ground colour, slightly tinged with buff, and freckled with a slightly richer shade of the 

 ground colour, the markings becoming confluent and darker on the larger end, where in one 

 specimen they form a clouded cap, and in the other a small but well defined zone: — Length 

 (A) 0'8 X o'55 inches; (B) 0-78 x o'55 inches. 



Sericornis humilis. 



SOMBRE SCRUB-WEEN. 

 Sericornis hiunilis, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soo , 1847, p. 13-3; id., Bds. Austr, fol.. Vol. III., pi. 47 

 (1848); id., Handbk. Bds. Austr,, Vol. I., p. 356 (1865); Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., 

 Vol. VII., p. 310 (1883); id., Hand-1. Bds., Vol. IV., p. 222(1903). 



Adult male — General colour above rich olive-brown, ivith a rufescent tinge ivhich is more 

 pronounced on the lower hack and rump ; upper iving-coverts like the back, the outer series of the 

 greater coverts blackish narrowly edged with white at the tip of the outer web; primary -coverts black; 

 bastard-wing black, margined with white at the tip of the inner web; outer webs of the quills olive- 

 brown with a rufescent tinge, the inner webs blackish-brown; upper tail-coverts and tail reddish- 

 brown; feathers below and in front of the eye dusky-blackish, above which, is a narrow dull zvhite 

 stripe not extending beyond the eye; chin ayid cheeks whitish, indistinctly mottled with blackish- 

 hroivn; sides of the neck like the hack: throat dull white with blackish centres to the feathers; fore- 

 neck pale yelloiv, with indistinct dusky centres to the feathers; chest, breast, and abdomen, pale 

 yelloiv, the former and the sides of the body light reddish-brown: ''bill dark brown; legs and feet 

 dark fleshy-brown ; iris buff'y-yellow" (AtklxMon). Total length in the flesh t) inches, wing 2 o, tail 

 2-1, bill 0-56, tarsus 1. 



Adult female — Similar in plumage to the male, hut havinq the feathers around the eye ashy- 

 broivn, the supraloral white stripe oidy faintly indicated, and the feathers on the throat dull 

 greyish-rohite, with indistinct dusky-brown centres. 



Distribution. — Tasmania, and some of the larger islands in Bass Strait. 

 ^"I^HIS species is generally distributed in favourable situations over most parts of 

 J- Tasmania, and it also inhabits some of the larger islands in Bass Strait. There 

 are specimens in the Australian Museum collection, obtained by Mr. George Masters in May, 

 1867, at Newtown Creek and Mount Wellington, in Southern Tasmania, also others procured 

 near Launceston. Dr. L. Holden has found numbers of its nests, with eggs or young, on the 

 north-western coast of Tasmania; so also has Mr. R. N. Atkinson, at W'aratah, a tin-mining 

 township at the foot of Mount Bischoff, about sixty miles in a direct line west from Launceston. 



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