i6j nests and eggs of AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



The hidden nest containing its set of red-speckled eggs may be often 

 discovered by the noisiness and over-anxious movements of its owners. 



This, like many of the other Wrens, is among the foster-parents of 

 the NaiTow-billed Bronze Cuckoo (C. haxalix). 



Of coui-se, I possess numerous nesting notes regarding the familiar Blue 

 Wren. Here arc one or two: — 



" Myruioug, 11th October, 1890. — Nest lined with thistle-down, prettily 

 decorated with Rcsella Parrot's feathers. Was, with its set of eggs, a 

 pei-fect picture, situated in a bimch of grass among the branches of a dead 

 fallen golden wattle (Acacia). 



" Benjeroop, Murray District, 1st December, 1890. — Nest with three 

 eggs foimd. Again in the same district. Blue Wren's nest containing 

 two Cuckoos' (C. basali/sj eggs." 



In one or two instances I have found a Cuckoo's egg between the 

 gi'ass-made folds of the nest, showing that the Cuckoo had deposited its 

 egg while the nest was in course of construction. 



A youthful correspondent (Master Leslie Cameron) sends me the 

 following cuiious note from Riverina : — " On a blue-bush hill on our 

 homestead lease there is a bullock's head (cranium) in wliich a little Blue 

 Wren has built its nest. The nest is in the top of the head, and they 

 (the birds) have the eye-hole to go in and out." 



Mr. Robert Hall, in the interesting and original " Notes on the Bird-fatma 

 of the Box Hill district, " states that in November one season, a nest of the 

 Blue Wren from which eggs were taken was giadually removed and re-built 

 by the birds in the same paddock. Another pair of birds built four nests 

 consecutively, which were robbed by boys. However, the Wrens, keeping 

 in the same hedge, laid the fifth time and baffled the boys. Mr. Hall 

 proved that the period of incubation is fourteen days, and the young fly 

 from the nest the ninth or tenth day after being hatched. 



Gould, in liis introduction to the genus Malurus, remarks: — "The 

 members of this genus are among the most beautiful of Austrahan birds. 

 Their (the males') gay attire, however, is only assiuned diu'ing the pairing 

 season, and is retained for a short period, after which the sexes are alike 

 in coloiu'ing. " He further says, with regard to M. cyanein (Blue Wren), 

 " At tliis (winter) period of the year the adult males throw oS their fine 

 livery, and the plumage of the sexes becomes so nearly ahke that a 

 minute examination is requisite to distinguish them." 



Mr. A. J. North has treated the interesting subject somewhat boldly, 

 but speculatively, and has arrived at the conclusion that Gould was decidedly 

 in error. Some field notes of other observers appear to substantiate 

 Mr. North's own observation, and his contention is that males of the 

 various Mahiri may be seen in their beautiful ckess at any period of the 

 year, and that when the male has once donned its fully-adult livery it 

 " always retains that phase," which is as brilliant in its colouring diuing 

 the winter months as it is in spring and siunmer. 



I was almost persuaded to accept Mr. North's theory, had not 

 Mr. James Cooper, the enthusiastic bird fancier, of Eastern Market, 

 Melbourne, put the matter to a test by trapping a male Blue Wren and 

 keeping it in captivity for a season. During Apiil, May, and Jime the 



