XESTS AXD ECGS 01- AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 1 8g 



.^V^■^ — Large, open ; composed cliiefly of green moss ; lined inside with 

 a good ply of grass, and usually placed on a stump or thick limb of a tree 

 in dense scrub. Resembles that of G. lunuhito of the mainland. 



Eggs. — Clutcli. two to three, occasionally four; long oval in form; 

 texture of shell somewhat line ; surface glos.sy ; colour, delicate or light 

 warmish-gi-cen, spotted and blotched all over with reddish or mfous-brown 

 intermingled with cloud-likc markings of duller red. Resemble those of 

 the mainland variety, but are usually lai'ger and perhaps more heavily 

 marked. Dimensions in inches of a pair: (1) 1-4 x -93, (2) 1-35 x -92; 

 of a clutch of three : (1) 1-3 x -9, (2) 1-28 x 9, (3; 1-27 x -93. 



Ohservatioiix. — This bird is the insular variety of the Ground Tlii-ush 

 of the mainland. Gould at first regarded the two birds as identical, 

 merely stating that Tasmanian specimens are longer and have a more 

 robust bill than those from AustraUa. 



The larger bird exists on all the principal islands in Bass Strait, 

 liaving been noted by the Field NaturaUsts' Club of Victoria on King 

 Island (1887), Kent Group (1890), and Furneaux Group (1893). 



On Kent Group, 1890, the Ground Thrashes are amongst my most 

 pleasant recollections of our camping quarters on these lonely islands. 

 Before simiise we, who were awake, heard the matins of the Thrushes 

 ascending in subdued, whistle-like tones from the scrubby hill behind our 

 tents. Not till stilly eve were the soft notes again heard, as if the birds 

 were then chanting low to the goodness of the closing day. We did not 

 find nests, but eggs collected by the obliging lighthouse keepers followed us 

 subsequently. 



In Tasmaiua I found a single nest of the Ground Thrush, containing 

 a clutch of eggs, one of wliich was only about half the normal size. 

 Tlie nest was apparently deserted, it being then October. 



Like its mainland cousin, the Tasmanian Ground Thrush returns 

 season after season to the site of an old nest, and is an early breeder. 

 The eggs are sometimes found in the moss-encircled nests when snow 

 is upon the gi'oimd. 



Mr. G. K. Hinsby, writing under date July, 1884, says: — "I noticed 

 the diiirirltla hinulata are beginning to build. I have a nest from which 

 I have taken more than a dozen eggs in three years. I saw 

 the bu-ds making it a Uttle higher to-day. I expect to take thi-ee eggs 

 from it in less than a fortnight from now." 



Mr. A. E. Brent informs me this species occasionally lays four eggs, 

 and cites an instance on the 24th September, 1893, when he took a nest 

 containing four eggs in a gully in Mount Faulkner; also another which 

 he took a few days later in the Grotto of the same locality. He has found 

 eggs in June. 



