^ESTS AND ECGS OF AVSTKAUAN HIRDS. 327 



Breeding season lasts from August to Doccinber, during wliicli pcriixl 

 two hriiods are reared. 



182. — CiSTicoLA EXI1.I8, Vigors and Horsfield — (1108-21'-!) 

 ('. rufireps, Gould. 



GRASS WARBrJ<:R. 



Figure — Gould; Birds of Australia, lol., Mil. iii . pis 41-45 



Rtfitence. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. vii., p. 269. 



Previnui Dtsoiplions 0/ ii^js.— Ramsay : Ibis, p 328 (1866), also Ibis, 

 p. 277 (1868); Campbell: Southern Science Record (1882), 

 also Nests and Eggs Austn. Birds, pi i . fig. 212 (1S83). 



Geographical Distribution. — -Wliole of Australia and King Island; 

 also New Guinea Islands, Molucea Islands, T'liilippines, Formosa, Malayan 

 Peninsula, Further India, and India. 



If est. — Small, inclined to oval in shape, with side entrance near top ; 

 constructed of fine grass, coarser on the outside, with spiders' webs and 

 cocoons added ; warmly lined inside with soft ni.aterial such as thistle-down. 

 Usually placed near the ground in tussock grass, dock-weed, or other 

 herbage. In some instances the broad leaves of dock enveloping the nest 

 are stitched or sewn together in a remarkable manner with some silky 

 thread-like substance. General situation open, rank, grassy country, 

 river flats, and occasionally in cultivated crops. Dimensions ; outside, 2| 

 to 3 inches in diameter by 3.^ to 4 inches long; entrance, 1[ inches across. 



A nest of the Rufous-headed Grass Warbler from Northern Queens- 

 land was found about six inches above the ground in a small bush, the 

 leaves of which were most ingeniously sewn together round the nest by 

 means of a thread of cob-web. The nest was constructed of fluff from 

 a flat weed when the seeds are ripe. 



Ei/</ii. — Clutch, four, occasionally five ; round oval in shape ; texture 

 of shell very fine ; surface exceedingly glo.ssy ; colour, beautiful, deUcate 

 bluish-gi-een, moderately but boldly blotched, chiefly alx)ut the larger end, 

 with reddish-brown and purplish-brown. Dimensions in inches of a proper 

 clutch : (1) -6 X -45. (2) -6 x -45. (3) -59 x -44, (4) -58 x -46. (Plate 10.) 



Observations. — A deal of confusion exists about the identity of this 

 httle wandering bird. Gould himself entertained doubts about the several 

 varieties which he named, but with the British Museum Catalogue we 

 may safely reduce the number to a unit, and accept it as one and the same 

 species that ranges from Southern Asia down through the intennediate 

 islands to Australia, where it has been observed throughout, to King 

 Island, Bass Strait (being identified there by the Field Naturalists' Expe- 

 dition, 1887), — its most southerly limit recorded. 



Whether the Grass Warbler is migratory or not. numbers appear to 



