XESTS AA'V LuOS Ut- At Si KALIAN lilKU:i. 



-'47 



iimilar shades. The second egg was deposited on the nuith day of the 

 month, iind the tliird egg on the eleventh. On the fourteenth the 

 bird had set itself to the ta«k of incubation. 



" In regulai" visits to foui- nosts tho eggs were found to bo laid each 

 forenoon early ; the young bii-ds hatched out on tho twenty-tliird day 

 from the time of laying third egg, and the young were able to fly on 

 the fifteenth day from the breaking of the shell. The family immedi- 

 ately begins a nomacUc life, and the locality is left to other birds before 

 the morning of the following day. During the time of incubation the 

 sitting bird leaves the nest to feed at early morning and evening, and 

 at night returns with a small feather or some downy plumage, so that 

 gi-adually the internal layer of its house is completed to its satisfaction. 



" In six nests observed in that district, two were hned with fui' of 

 rabbits, the others with feathers; all were inclined, with entrance 

 protected from above, and all faced the north-east, wliicli is the fine 

 weather quarter at that period of the year. It was noticeable that 

 the iutelUgence of the birds led them to build the external portion of 

 their dome nest during rain or in early morning, when the wiiy gi-asses 

 ai'e pliable, and the wet-softened material could be more easily 

 adjusted to the required shape, while the inner layer was constructed 

 at mid-day, when the material was drier." 



Illustrations of two nests of the Wliite-browed Scrub Wren are 



198.- — Sericoknis MAGNiROSTRis, Gould. — (219) 

 LARGE-BILLED SCRUB WREN. 



Figure. — Gould: Birds of Australia, fol., vol. iii., pi. 52. 

 Reference.— C3.t. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. vii., p. 305. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs. — Gould : Birds of Australia (1848), also 

 Handbook, vol. i., p. 363 (1865); North: Austn. Mus. Cat., 

 p. 132 (1889). 



Geographical Dlstrihution. — Queensland, New South Wales and 

 Victoria. 



yeat. — Vei-y similar in shape and construction to that of the Yellow- 

 throated Scrub Wren ( S. citrvoyularis), but a trifle smaller, being moss- 

 made, with a greater mixture of dead leaves, portions of flags and 

 wire-like rootlets. Fairly lined inside with feathers, but not so pro- 

 fusely as in the case of the Yellow-throated Scrub Wren's nest. 

 Usually suspended from pendulous branches or from lawj'er palm 

 (Calamus) canes, fi'oni three feet to thirty feet above the gi'ound, in 

 the densest of scrub. 



Efjfix. — Clutch, three, occasionally four ; inclined to oval in shape ; 

 textiu-e of shell fine ; surface glossy ; colour, dull or bufl'y-white, finely 

 freckled and splashed with purplish-brown, the markings forming a 



