174 NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



I first met with this blue and white feathered gem early one December, 

 (1890), on the shores of the salt lakes, near Benjeroop, where the bii-ds 

 were numerous among the short, succulent plants (Salicornia) that 

 clothed the place, and where I succeeded in finding three nests building, 

 besides one containing a paii- of fresh eggs. 



Another season, in September, Mr. J. Gabriel and I sought for a 

 clutch or two of then- eggs in a cotton-bush plain, near Moukmein, New 

 South Wales, where the birds were merry and noisy. The male birds 

 simply delighted us with the radiance of their blue coats, enhanced by 

 contrast with the snowy-wliite parts of their wings, as they fluttered over 

 the bushes before us. However, we did not procure eggs, for all the nests 

 we found were, without exception, rifled, and the bottoms partly torn out. 

 We suspected those black villains, the Ravens, had done the mischief. 



On 7th November, 1892, Mr. G. H. Morton, Benjeroop (Victoi-ia), 

 took two eggs from a White-winged Wren's nest from which four daya 

 previously he had abstracted a pair. 



Breeding months September to December. 



145. — Maluru.s leuconotus, Gould. — (195) 

 WHITE-BACKED WRSN. 



Figure. — Gould: Birds of Australia, fol , supp., pi. 24. 

 Reference.— Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. iv., p. 291. 



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

 vol. vii,, p. 49 (1882). 



Geographical Distribution. — New South Wales, South, West, and 

 North-west Australia. 



Nest. — Like that of all other members of the genus, a dome-shaped, 

 oblong structure of fine grass, omamented and mixed with cob-web and 

 wool, and lined inside with cotton from the native cotton-bush, or the 

 silky down from the seed pods of an asclepiad. Placed in a small tuft 

 of coarse gi-ass near the ground, at other times among the lower branches 

 and gi-ass at the base of a cotton-bush. Dimensions, 5i inches in length 

 by 2| inches in breadth (Ramsay). 



Eggs. — Clutch, three to fovir ; inchned to oval in shape ; textiu'c of 

 shell very fine ; surface shghtly glossy ; colour, white, with the sUght«st 

 tinge of pink, spotted and fiuely-blotched fairly all over, but more thickly 

 on the apex, with chestnut or reddish-brown. Dimensions in inches of 

 a clutch : (1) -65 X -45, (2) -62 x -45, (3) -6 x -44. 



Observations. — This Wren is another desert gem, or interior species, 

 with a habitat (excepting Victoria) nearly the same as that of the White- 

 winged variety, with wliich it has been confounded by some collectors. 

 The White-backed Wren has been obtained by Mr. Tom Carter as tax 



