5o6 



NESTS AND AGGS 01- AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



auuthcr, uow tluowiug its voice over my liuad, tlieu on one side, and 

 llien apparently from the log on which I was standing. This it will 

 continue to do for horns together, and you may remain all day without 

 catcliing sight of it. " 



One of the novelties of the scrubs of the Richmond and Clarence 

 llivcr districis is undoubtedly the Uttle Rufous Sciiib Bird. There is 

 only one other species of this extraordinary genus in Australia — in 

 ftict, in the whole world — the Noisy Scrub Bird, foiuid in Western 

 Australia. 



The eastern bird is much the smaller of the two and darker brown 

 in coloiu', wliile it utters similar loud piercing notes to the western 

 variety, in adchtion to the accomphshmeut of luimicking other birds of 

 the scrub. It stmts proudly over the gi-oimd with di-oopiug wings and 

 tail reflected over its back, not unlike a Lyre Bird — a trait of character 

 luthei-to uni'ecorded. The bird never leaves for a moment the tangled 

 undergi-owth or beds of rank herbage, which my companion and 

 I hrmted in vain for evidence of nesting (in fact, it was hopes of 

 fmding a nest of this curious bird that partly induced us to visit the 

 district in 1891). Altliough we found no nest, wc did not experience 

 any difficulty in obtaining lialf-a-dozen skins, all, luifortimately, males. 

 It is indeed most remarkable that the female of neither species of 

 Atrichia has yet been procured. Some of the birds shot were moulting 

 then (November), and I concluded that they had bred and that the 

 breeding season was early, or even in the winter. However, I sent my 

 son to the same district some years afterwards to look up a nest. He 

 fared no better than myself, and returned wdth a skin only of a 

 youthful bu-d — an inevitable male. 



However, the credit of finding the first Atrichia s nest falls to that 

 enthusiastic oologist, Mr. S. W. Jackson, and his party, who discovered 

 it in the Bulabulah sci-ub, about seventy-five miles from South Grafton, 

 in the Clarence district. 



Mr. Jackson wTites : — 'I paid particular attention to the Atrichia 

 during my visit, and laid aside no chances of following it whei'ever 

 I heard it sing out. But I heard the bird more often than I observed 

 it. They are shy birds. 



" On the 20th October (1S9S) we left camp at 8 a.m.. after enjoying a 

 good breakfast of damper and curried Wonga Pigeon. The four of us at 

 about six himdred yards from oiu' camp entered the scmb, which we had 

 hardly been in, when we heard noisy Spine-tailed Orthonyxes crying out 

 in all parts. All at once an Ortlwnyx flew from a nest wliich was built 

 at the foot of a tree. About tlu-ee feet from this nest was a tuft 

 of long green grass, out of which immediately after the Orthonyx flew 

 the Atrichia. We rushed over and found it contained two fresh eggs, 

 which we were certain must be the Atrichias, considering the bird 

 flew from the nest, and we all saw it was an Atrichia. 



" After robbing the nest, we lay dovsm concealed in fems and under- 

 growth in the scrab for nearly four hours, and witli giui pointed at the 

 nest, waiting the return of ' Mi-s.' Atrichia, but it wa« all for nothing, 

 not the shghtest siglit of the bird was obtained. 



