44 CERTIIIID.«. 



nests, down the hollows of old posts of dismantled huts, as well as in the round corner posts of 

 old fences. Two or three eggs are laid for a sitting, more often the latter number." 



The decaying limb of a tree, usually a Eucalyptus, of which a portion has rotted or broken 

 oft' leaving a hollow spout, is the nesting site generally selected, at the bottom of which a slightly 

 cupped mattress is formed of opossum or rabbit fur, intermingled in some instances with dried 

 grasses. At Ashfield, on two occasions, I found their nests built in thick trunks of trees, to 

 which the birds in each instance, gained access through narrow clefts. The nesting sites vary 

 from a few feet to forty and fifty feet from the ground. At Dobroyde, in November 1889, a pair 

 of birds I had under daily observation reared their young in a nesting place in the trunk of a 

 tree ten feet from the ground and close to a well frequented road. 



The eggs are two or three in number for a sitting, oval or rounded oval in form, the shell 

 being close-grained, smooth, and slightly lustrous. They are of a reddish-white ground colour 

 which is almost obscured with freckles and mottlings of different shades of red and purplish-red. 

 Typically the markings are uniformly distributed over the surface of the shell, in some they are 

 larger and more numerous on the thicker end, where intermmgled with a tew underlying spots of 

 dull violet -grey, they form small confluent patches ; but only in rare instances do they assume 

 the form of a well defined zone. There is a great variation in their size, even in eggs belonging 

 to the same set. A set of two taken by Mr. James Ramsay, at Tyndarie, on the 24th August, 

 1879, measure as follows: — Length (A) 0-93 x 074 inches; (6)0-95 x 073 inches. A se.t of 

 two taken by Dr. E. P. Ramsay, at Macquarie Fields, measure: — Length (A) 0-87 x o-68 inches; 

 (B) 0-9 X 072 inches. A set of three taken near the Dawson River, Queensland, on the 9th 

 October, 1892, measure: — Length (A) o-86 x 071 inches; (B) 0-85 x 07 inches; (C) 075 

 X 0-66 inches. 



Immature birds resemble the adults, but the white stripe down the centre of the feathers 

 on the under parts is ill-defined, and the sides of the breast and the under tail-coverts are slightly 

 washed with dull rufous. \N ing 3-4 inches. 



August and the four following months constitute the usual breeding season of this species. 



Climacteris scandens. 



WHITE-THROATED TREE-CREEPER. 

 Climacteris scandens, Tenim., Pi. Col., 281, tig. 2; Gadow, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus , Vol. VIIL, p. 337 



(1883) ; Sharpe, Hand-1., Bds., Vol. IV., p. 357 (1903). 

 Climacteris pieumnus, (nee Temin.) Gould, Bds. Austr., fol.. Vol. IV., pi. 98 (1848). 

 Climacteris leueophcea, Gould, Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., p. 605 (1865). 

 Climacteris pyrrhonota, Gould, Proc. Zool. 80c., 1867, p. 976; Gadow, Cat. Bds, Brit. Mus., Vol. 



VIIL, p. 339 (1883); Sharpe, Hand-1. Bds., Vol. IV., p. 357 (1903) (immat.) 

 Adult male — General colour abore olive brown, being/ of a clearer olive on the back: rump and 

 upper tail-coverts dark grey: tipper wing-coverts dark brown; quills dark brorvn, greyish-brown at the 

 tips and on both webs of the innermost secondary, all but the latter and the outermost primaries crossed 

 in the centre with a pale fairn band being richer in colour near the shaft of the inner neb: the central 

 pair of tail feathers dark grey, the remainder greyish-brown, crossed with a broad subterminal band 

 of blackish-brown, and tipped witli white on the inner web, the tip being larger and the band paler on 

 the outermost feather on either side; feathers of the forehead and crown of the head blackish brown, 

 with pale olive-brown margins, giving these parti a scaly appearance ; lores and small feathers below 

 the eye white with blackish-brown tips; ear-coverts dark brown with avhitish central streak and olire- 

 brou-n tips; chin, cheeks, throat, fore neck, centre of the breast and the abdomen irhifi- : Ihe fore neck 



