140 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



entire and head foremost, after the manner of the Httle 

 favourite of our own island. It is a sohtary bird, a pair, and 

 frequently only one, being found at the same spot. During 

 the breeding-season it becomes querulous and active, and 

 even pugnacious if any intruder of the same species should 

 venture within the precincts of its abode. The males at 

 this season chase each other up and down the stream with 

 arrow-like quickness, when, the rich azure-blue of the back 

 glittering in the sun, they appear more like meteors, as they 

 dart by the spectator, than birds. The task of incubation 

 commences in August and terminates in January, during 

 which period two broods are frequently brought forth. The 

 eggs, which are of a beautiful pearly or pinkish white and 

 rather round in form, are deposited at the extremity of a 

 hole, in a perpendicular or shelving bank bordering the 

 stream, without any nest being made for their reception ; 

 they are from five to seven in number, three quarters 

 of an inch broad by seven-eighths of an inch long. The 

 young at the first moult assume the plumage of the adult, 

 which is never afterwards changed. The hole occupied by 

 the bird is frequently almost filled up with the bones of small 

 fish, which are discharged from the throat and piled up round 

 the young in the form of a nest. Immediately on leaving 

 their holes the young follow the parents from one part of the 

 brook to another, and are fed by them while resting on some 

 stone or branch near the water's edge ; they soon, however, 

 become able to obtain their own food, and may be observed 

 at a very early age plunging into the water to a considerable 

 depth to capture small fish and insects. 



The sexes are precisely similar in the colouring of their 

 plumage, neither do they diff'er in size. The young are very 

 clamorous, frequently uttering their twittering cry as their 

 parents pass and repass the branch on which they are sitting. 



All the upper surface and a patch on each side of the chest 

 fine ultramarine blue, becoming more vivid on the rump and 



