SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 57 



family parties like other wrens. Its rich black tints contrast strikingly with 

 its orange back, making the adult male a very handsome little fellow. He 

 has the stupid habit, however, of our Blue Wren, of showing himself off in a 

 prominent position, a habit often responsible for his undoing should a 

 Butcher-bird catch sight of his showy coat. 



' This bird ranges over the greater part of the southern and eastern portions 

 of Australia. In the northern parts of Australia its place is taken by a 

 ■closely related species, Malurus cruentatus, which Gould called Brown's Wren, 

 after one of the officers of H.M.S. Beagle, who collected it at Port Essington, 

 in the Northern Territory. I met with this species in the grass-land of 

 north-western Australia, in the vicinity of King's Sound. It is a smaller 

 wren than the southern one, with the back a deeper rich red. 



The Black-headed 8 uperb- warbler is a name also given to this bird, but 

 the one I have favoured is much less cumbersome as a popular name and 

 makes acknowledgment, too, of the characteristic and rich colouring of the 

 back. The nest is of the usual oval domed form with a hole in the side ; it 

 is constructed of dry grass, lined inside with finer materials, and contains 

 three or four roundish glossy-white eggs, blotched and spotted with reddish- 

 brown on the apex. 



