SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 51 



Gould, when he published his great work, did not know anything about 

 the nest or eggs of the Crested Shrike-tit, but later bird hunters found that 

 the nest was placed in a slender fork in the topmast branch of a gum-tree. 

 It is comprised of strips of fine bark and grass forming a sphere-shaped cup^ 

 coated on the outside with bits of lichen and moss matted together with 

 spiders' web, and lined inside with softer material. The oval, white eggs, two 

 or three in number, are freckled all over with fine spots, with a few larger 

 blotches of dark olive-grey and reddish-brown at their apex. Mr. G. E. 

 Shepherd, the Victorian naturalist, quoted by Campbell, says that the nest 

 would be hard to find were it not for the male bird piping forth a low soft 

 flute-like note on an adjacent limb. He sings while she (the female) works 

 hard to build the nest, the male apparently assisting very little, if at all, in 

 the work. He does a certain amount of the preliminary work, however, in 

 clearing a space for the nest before the foundations are laid, adds the 

 observer. 



The Short-billed Tree-tit {Smicojnis hrevirostris Gould). 



Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 272, No. 161 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 124, No. 250. 



This is one of the smallest and at the same time one of the most industrious 

 birds in Australia ; it is allied to the European tits, and has very similar 

 habits. It spends its time among the foliage of the gum-trees hunting for 

 insects among the flowers and leaves. This species has a wide range over 

 eastern Australia from Queensland to Victoria and across South Australia to 

 the West. It makes a very small, perfectly round nest of grass, lined inside 

 with feathers and grass matted together with spiders' web, with a tiny 

 opening on the side. This swings among the foliage or is attached to a twig, 

 and is only three inches in diameter. The eggs, of which there are three or 

 four, are brownish and glossy, with a belt of darker brown round the apex. 



These birds live in small communities, traversing the top-most gum 

 branchlets. According to Campbell, their ordinary call is "a rasping little 

 note like a tit's [Acanthiza), while now and again they answer one another 

 in a sweet simple call." 



The Mountain Thrush {Creocinda lunulata Latham). 



Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 439, No. 275 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 133, No. 280. 



This bird is a true thrush, belonging to the same family (Turdidce) as the 

 well-known British Thrush, Black-bird, and Nightingale; and it has been 

 proposed to place it in the typical genus Turdus. Its generic name has been 

 altered several times. Mr. Campbell called it Geocichla lunulata. 



As its name suggests, the Mountain or Ground Thrush lives chiefly upon 

 the ground ; in Tasmania it frequents the bush on the slopes of Mount 

 Wellington, in New South Wales it inhabits the cedar brushes of the Liver- 

 pool Plains, and in Victoria it secretes itself in the dense ti-tree scrub along 

 the shores of Hobson's Bay. In South Australia it is found in similar 

 localities. 



