310 TIMELIID.E. 



brown ball of feathers often ventured on to a track, threw back its head, and poured forth its 

 oft-repeated clear double note while I was seated only a few feet away. The difficulty was to 

 get far enoufjh awav from the bird, without losing sight of it, if one wanted to procure a 

 specimen. In habits it resembles Scricorms frontalis, passing most of its time upon the ground 

 hopping in and out of the tangled masses of vegetation, sometimes out on a clearing, or among 

 the fallen and decaying timber in search of insects, which constitute its food. Two nests were 

 found during my second visit, at Childers, in October, 1878, built on the ground among low 

 ferns, and each containing two fresh eggs. For many years in this neighbourhood, and between 

 Yarragon and the Narracan River, it was, with the exception of Scrtcornis frontalis, one of the 

 commonest ground-frequenting species haunting these humid localities, but the clearings made 

 by selectors and bush fires eventually drove most of these birds to a more thickly wooded and 

 secure retreat. In similar country Mr. Joseph Gabriel has found these birds breeding at 

 Bayswater, in the Dandenong Ranges, Victoria. Their range in favourable situations extends 

 throughout the coastal ranges of Eastern Victoria into the humid scrubs and mountain gullies 

 of the Illawarra District of New South Wales. Mr. J. A. Thorpe and Mr. J. Yardley obtained 

 specimens at Cambewarra, where it was also found breeding by Mr. Sinclair, a timber-getter, 

 in November, 1886, the nest and eggs together with the parents being forwarded to the Trustees 

 of the Australian Museum. Mr. Thorpe had, however, previously obtained specimens near 

 Helensburgh in May, 1881; and in September, 1893, the Curator (Mr. R. Etheridge, Junr.), and 

 Mr. Thorpe met with this bird in the deep gullies running down to the sea-shore at Gera, on 

 the south-eastern confines of the National Park. On the Blue Mountains Mr. Robt. Grant first 

 procured these birds at Lithgow in 1878, and since that time he informs me that he has obtained 

 between forty and fifty specimens, and found two of their nests. One, built in some debris a few 

 yards away from the edge of a creek bank, contained a single fresh egg, but on visiting the place 

 a week later he found that the nest and surroundings had been destroyed by a bush fire. The 

 other, built close to a fallen log, contained two young ones. He also met with this species in a 

 deep gorge between Wallerawang and Mudgee, the northern limit of its known range. Of a 

 series of seventeen adult specimens now before me, twelve were obtained by Mr. Grant in the 

 vicinity of Lithgow. I have also heard this species in the Kanimbla \'alley, and near the 

 Katoomba, Leura, and Wentworth Falls. Some, which I take to be very old birds, are much 

 darker and richer in colour than others, the ear-coverts are rufescent-ochre like the lores, and 

 the outermost feathers of the median wing-coverts have no ochraceous-brown tips; in others 

 the ear-coverts are brown and have the basal portion only rufescent-ochre. The wing- 

 measurent of adult males varies from 2'6 to 2-9 inches. 



Detailing his experience of the nesting-habits of this species, Mr. Joseph Gabriel sent me 

 the following notes with a nest and two eggs he had taken at Bayswater, \'ictoria, on the Sth 

 December, 1897: — "Pilot-birds, when building their nest, do not travel far for material, and 

 work very rapidly, hence they finish their nest in a few days. This I know to my sorrow, for 

 I lost the eggs from the first nest I found through over-sitting. As far as I have observed, 

 these birds do not confine themselves to breeding near creek banks. Three nests which were 

 found for me by my friends, were all well up on the hill-side; one was cosily placed at the base 

 of a fern (Aspidium aciileatum); another, which I am sending you, was built under the shelter of 

 some undergrowth several hundred yards away from water; the third was built in my friend's 

 garden, close to the house, and much to my chagrin was never laid in. I found another nest 

 on the 8th December, containing two young. When these birds are building is the best time 

 to locate their nests, except of course when feeding their young." 



The nest is a rather large and loosely-built dome-shaped structure, with an oval entrance in 

 the side. It is outwardly formed of very thin strips of bark and bark-fibre, with which is inter- 

 mingled a few dead eucalyptus leaves, and the black hair-like roots of a tree-fern. Inside it 



