316 TIM KLUDGE. 



three eggs. On two occasions I have seen new nests containing an egg of the Fan-tailed 

 Cuckoo, that were picked up on the floor of the cave they were built in, apparently broken 

 down hv the weight of the Cuckoo while depositing its egg. Generally suspended only by its 

 silky hinge, formed of spider's web, even when the Rock Warbler leaves the nest it oscillates 

 backwards and forwards with a pendulum-like movement. 



Mr. Frank Hislop, who took several sets of this species in the neighbourhood of Lithgow, 

 on the Blue Mountains, writes me as follows: — "On the nth September, 1899, I saw Origma 

 rubricata enter into a deserted coal tunnel with some nesting-material in its bill. A week later 

 I visited the place again and entered the tunnel, taking with me the acetylene gas lamp from 

 my bicycle. It was pitch dark, and my lamp did not give any light except directly in front. 

 About fifteen yards from the entrance I found the nest suspended from the side of one of the 

 uprights which the miners had put in to hold up the roof of the mine. The nest was diflerent 

 to the ones you showed me at Roseville and Middle Harbour, the entrance being so large that I 

 could see the single egg it contained lying inside at the bottom of the structure. Subsequently 

 I took three eggs from this nest." 



When menaced by danger, these birds are exceedingly solicitous for the welfare of their 

 young. On the 5th October, igoi, at Middle Harbour, I watched a pair running about the 

 flat-topped rocks, and from their actions concluded that they had a nest in the vicinity. 

 Moving quietly about, three fledgelings were at last discovered perched in a row between 

 two rocks. After a long chase, with the aid of a youthful companion, two of them were 

 captured that had sought refuge in crannies of rocks. The cries of one of the young ones, 

 held in my hand while resting against a breast-higli rock, attracted the attention of the parents, 

 who, with trailing wings and outspread tail feathers ran rapidly hither and thither over the 

 table-topped surface of the rock, at the same time uttering their shrill notes, and exhibiting 

 every symptom of distress. After comparing it with the parents, who were frequently only 

 two feet away, it was restored to liberty. The other was accidently killed, and is now a 

 specimen in the Australian Museum Reference Collection. 



Except for being slightly duller in colour, and having but little indication of the 

 greyish -white throat, the young are similar in plumage to the adult when they leave 

 the nest. 



The nest figured on Plate A. 7, which contained three eggs, I photographed at Roseville 

 on the nth September, 1900. In form it is a fairly typical one, and measures externally ten 

 inches in length by four inches and a half in breadth. The nesting-material above the structure 

 where it is attached to the rock, is however somewhat shorter and tapers less to a point than 

 usual. 



These birds resort to the same nesting-site year after year. If the nest is removed, it 

 is generally built in another cave or rock-shelter not far away, and frequently in a different 

 part of the same cave from which the nest has been taken. 



August and the four following months constitute the usual breeding season of this 

 species. 



