200 PELlION'OMID.T,. 



rapidly, aiul a\oids llyiiig if possible. When fluslied, if followed and found, the bird may often be 

 picked np without difficulty. While Ouail shootint; at Melton, X'ictoria, with the late Mr. W. P. 

 Henderson, B.A., we noticed our setter doi,' make a decided ' set,' and in a few seconds he moved 

 on, a,i,'ain setting;. This was continued for about two hundred yards in a zig-zag course, when 

 the thought occurred to my companion that the dog was following the course of a hare or rabbit, 

 and setting at the various places in which it had squatted. He was about to whip the dog when 

 I noticed a luale Plain-Wanderer running like a rat through the grass, about forty yards ahead. 

 By running after the bird it was flushed and then shot. Soon afterwards a female was flushed, and 

 on taldng the dog to where it had settled Mr. Henderson found the Plain- Wanderer squatting 

 (juite still, and picked it up. I had this bird, along with a male secured a little later, placed in an 

 aviary, where the hen laid four clutches of eggs, but they were unfortunately devoured by mice 

 before they were hatched. The Plain-Wanderers ate canary seed and wheat, but they were 

 partial to worms or grubs obtained from the firewood. When drinking they do not lift their 

 iieads lilce many other birds, but peck at the surface of tlie water like a (_)uail would peck at 

 some canary seed." 



The nest is simply a grass-lined depression in the ground, sheltered by a conxenient tuft of 

 grass, herbaceous plant or low bush, usually the former. 



Gould fust described the egg of the Collared Plain Wanderer in 1S63, in his " Handbook 

 to the Birds of Australia," from a perfect specimen sent him by Strange, and taken by the latter 

 from the oviduct of a female. 



The eggs are four in number for a sitting, varying from pyriform to pear-shape in form, the 

 shell being close-grained, smooth and almost lustreless. They are of a stone, or faint yellowish- 

 white, ground colour, which is more or less covered with freckles and small irregularly-shaped 

 spots and blotches of different shades of brown or umber-brown, with which are intermingled a 

 few underlying spots and blotches of dull slaty-grey, the markings predominating as usual on 

 the thicker end, where in many places they are confluent, forming here and there small irregular 

 shaped patches. An egg in the Australian Museum Collection, taken at Springfield, near 

 Goulburn, New South Wales, in December, 1875, measures: — Length 1-35 x o'95 inches. 

 One from a set of four taken in the same month and year at Pyramid Hill, \'ictoria, measures : — 

 Length i'42 x 0-97 inches. Another from a set of four taken in August, 1887, near Adelaide, 

 South Australia, measures : — Length 1-2 x o'gS inches. A set of four in my collection, received 

 from the late Mr. H. G. Evered,and taken on the gth November, 1895, at Bulla, near Melbourne, 

 Victoria, measures : — Length (A) 1-27 x o-g inches ; (B) 1-27 x o-g inches; (C) 1-26 x o-g3 

 inches; (D) i-^ x o-gi inches. 



The imiuature male resembles the adult, but is smaller, the feathers are downy, and the 

 white or whity-brown edging to the feathers of the back and scapulars does not extend so far up 

 the sides, and it is also devoid of the buff collar around the hind neck. Wing 3'35 inches. 



The immature female is similar, but the markings on the under parts are brownish-black, 

 and not so well defined, the marking on the foreneck are paler, and the collar around the neck 

 is narrower, brownish-black, and more irregularly spotted with white, and the rufous marking 

 on the foreneck is smaller and paler. Wing almost equals that of the adult, 3-85 inches. 



As a rule the breeding season is in the three latter months of the year, but in Victoria and 

 South Australia eggs have been taken in [une, July and August. The immature male described 

 above was procured on the 17th May, and the immature female in .August. 



