226 NESTS AND r.CGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



Mr. Tom Carter has been good enoxigh to send me a skin of a Tawny 

 Grass Bird from tlie region of the North-west Cape, with the following 

 memo. : " I think it may be new. It does not correspond with Gould's 

 description, having no dark centres to the feathers on the back, and the 

 abdomen is almost red. It may be a desert variety. I have only seen it 

 in the dense spinifex on dry stony ranges." Comparing the skin with 

 M. gnlar/ofrx, the North-west bird has somewhat abraded plumage, wliile 

 blackish-bro^vn centres of the upper surface feathers are absent. 



181. — Origma rubricata, Latham. — (236) 

 ROCK WARBLER. 



Fif^nre. — Gould: Birds of Australia, fol , vol iii , pi. 69. 



Rejerencc. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus,, vol. vii., p. 135. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs. — Ramsay : Ibis, p. 445 (1863) id. ; Gould: 



Birds of Australia, Handbook, vol, i., p. 3S7 (1S65) ; North: 



Austn. Mus. Cat., pi. 13, fig 8 (1889). 



Grrif/rapliicnl Distrihufinn. — South Queensland and New South Wales. 



Nest. — Oblong in form, vei-y large for the size of the bird, with entrance 

 in the side about two inches wide. It is generally composed of fibrous 

 roots interwoven with spiders' webs. Tlie mass does not assume the shape 

 of the nest until a few days before it is completed, when a hole for the 

 entrance is made and the inside warmly lined with feathers (Ramsay). 

 Usually placed in dark caves, hollow logs, or disused coal pits (North). 



Egys. — Clutch, three ; oval or long oval in shape ; texture of shell fine ; 

 surface glossy ; colour, pure white. Dimensions in inches of a clutch : 

 (1) -86 X -62, (2) -86 x -61. (3) -85 x -59. 



Ohseri'ations. — The Rock AVarbler is altogether a very singular bird, 

 with an equally singular habit<it, restricted to the rocky situations of the 

 coast of New South Wales and Southern Queensland, occasionally to stony 

 gullies and ravines more inland, notably at the Blue Mountains and 

 Mudgee. 



During a visit to Sydnc\' I was interested in watching the movements 

 of one or two of these birds about the rocks on the Manly beach. My 

 son Archie procured a pair of birds from the same locality. 



As far back as 1863, Dr. Ramsay has given a good account of the nest 

 and eggs of the Rock Warbler. Dr. Ramsay obsers'ed that the birds took 

 a long time to complete the nest. One found on the 6th August was not 

 finished imtil the 25th of that month. On the 30th three eggs were 

 taken from it. This nest was suspended to the roof of a cave in the 

 gully of George's River, near Macquaric Fields, and was composed 

 of rootlets and spiders' webs, wai-mly lined with feathers and opossum fur. 



I saw a very clean set of eggs of the Rock Warbler in the collection 

 of Mr. S. W. Moore, Svdnev. taken at the Jenolan Caves, 21st September, 

 1893. 



