of Birds from Port Denison. 329 



They are often composed of stringy-bark alone, at other times 

 with grass, fibrous rootlets, and the like. These birds may be 

 ranked among our sweetest and most lively songsters. C. can- 

 tillans is a perfect ventriloquist; and I have been frequently 

 misled by fancying the bird was flying towards me, and at least 

 a hundred yards or more away, when to my surprise one day I 

 discovered it perched upon a bough only a few feet above my 

 head. Its note is a continued and varied song, which it com- 

 mences in a very low tone, seeming to be a considerable distance 

 off, then getting louder and louder till it reaches an almost deaf- 

 ening pitch, when it suddenly stops with a loud sharp " crack" 

 something like the abrupt note of Pachijcephala rufiventris and 

 Psophodes crepitans. After twittering a few notes in an under 

 tone, it again commences its song, with which it also favours us 

 as it flies to and fro over the fields. It seldom mounts in the 

 air to any distance, but chiefly flies backwards and forwards over 

 the ground at an elevation of about twenty or thirty feet. Its 

 power of ventriloquism is truly wonderful and most perfect. 

 When first I discovered it I could hardly believe my eyes ; but 

 when it repeated its song several times while I was standing 

 beneath the bough on which it was perched, and closely watching 

 it, being only a few feet from the bird itself, I left without any 

 doubt whatever upon the subject, and only wondered why I had 

 not observed it before. Its song being the same, except the ven- 

 triloquism, as when it is flying, one is not so likely to notice it. 



70. Stictoptera BiCHENovii (Vigors and Horsfield). H.B.A. 

 i. p. 409. 



71. iEoiNTHA TEMPORALIS (Latham). H. B. A. i. p. 411. 



72. tEdemosyne modesta, Gould. H. B. A. i. p. 414. 



73. PoEPHiLA ciNCTA, Gould. H. B. A. i. p. 425. 



All these four species are at times plentiful. 



74. Chlamydodera MACULATA, Gould. H. B. A. i. p. 450. 

 Neither this bird nor C. nuchalis (Ibis, 1865, p. 85) are by 



any means rare. Of C. nuchalis Mr. Rainbird forwarded me a 

 living example, which he states he had in confinement for up- 

 wards of five months. It feeds freely upon bread soaked in 



