IVESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



140 



leaving Melbourne for the great western teiTitory. I had not been in 

 the Albany district a week before I made my way to the Tor Bay saw- 

 mills. There, to my deliglit, a pair of White-breasted Robins almost 

 immediately introduced themselves by appearing about the men's quarters. 

 In a day or two (2nd October, 1889) I was enabled to track them down 

 to the creek close by, wliere, in a fork of an erect she-oak (Casuarina) 

 sapling, eight or ten feet up, I discovered the nest cont;uning a pair of 

 eggs, about half-incubatcd. A few days or a week subsequently, in 

 another pait of the forest, I took a second nest, hidden in the fork of a 

 grass-tree ( Xiinthorrhven), where the drooping, rush-like foliage carefully 

 concealed the home. These eggs were perfectly fresh. A third nest, 

 I found in a thick busli in the Karridalc district, contained an addled egg. 



Gould and other authorities class the White-bellied or White-breasted 

 Robin with the Eopmltrice, but as the nests and eggs, especially the latter, 

 arc totally dissimilar from those of any of the members of that genus, it is 

 therefore obvious the White-breasted bird should be separated from the 

 true Eopsditrui, and I have ventui'ed to place it in the genus 

 Ammtrodrtjns, with the Dusky Robin of Ta.smania, to which, oologically 

 at all events, it more closely belongs. 



Probably the chief breeding months for the White-breasted Robin are 

 from September to December. 



121. PCECILODRYAS SUPERCILIOSA, Gould. (172) 



WHITE-BROWED ROBIN. 



Fii;ure. — Gould ; Birds of Australia, fol., vol. iii., pi. g 

 Reference, — Cat. Biids Brit. Mus., vol. iv., p. 242. 

 Previous Description of Eggs. — Ramsay : Proc. Linn. Soc, N.S. Wales, 

 vol. i., 2nd ser., p. 1145 (i886j. 



Gengrajihical Diittribution. — Northern Ten'itory and North Queens- 

 land. 



Ne.<t. — CujJ-shaped, comparatively broad-rimmed, with frail foimdation ; 

 constructed of fine twigs, grass, &c., the rim being oiuamented with a few 

 pieces of thin, flat bark, and Uned inside with brownish fibrous material 

 and rootlets. Dimensions over all, 3 i inches by 1 i inches ; egg cavity, 

 2 inches across by 1|^ inches deep. 



Egg.'t. — Clutch, two usually ; oval in shape ; texture of shell fine ; 

 sui-face sUghtly glossy; colour, delicate palc-gi-eeu, blotched cliiefly, and 

 spotted with reddish-brown and chestnut and purplish-brown ; some of 

 the markings form a belt round the upper quarter. Most resemble those 

 of the Large-headed Robin (P. capito). Dimensions in inches of a proper 

 clutch : (1) -SI X -59, (2) -8 x -59. (Plate 8.) 



Ohxervations. — I have persistently hunted for the eggs of tliis inte- 

 resting Robin, especially on one occasion, at a creek near Townsville 



