INSESSORES. 177 



shyness of its disposition it presents a remarkable contrast to 

 tlie G. Tibicen ; it was indeed so wary and so difficult to 

 approach, that it required the utmost ingenuity to obtain a 

 sufficient number of specimens necessary for my purpose. 

 Plain and open hilly parts of the country are the localities it 

 prefers, where it dwells much on the ground, feeding upon 

 locusts and other insects. In size it is fully as large as any 

 species of the genus yet discovered ; it runs over the ground 

 with great facility, and frequently takes long flights across 

 the plains from one belt of trees to another ; in other parts of 

 its economy it so nearly resembles the G. Tibicen, that it 

 would be useless to repeat a description of them. The same 

 single clear note and early carol of small companies perched 

 on some leafless branch of a Eucalyptus appears charac- 

 teristic of all the members of the genus. 



It breeds in September and October, constructing a nest 

 of dried sticks in an upright fork of a gum- or mahogany- 

 tree. A nest taken in Angas Park, South Austraha, Oct. 5, 

 1861, and presented to me by G. French Angas, Esq., 

 measures about a foot across, and is constructed of coarse 

 roots and twigs, with its shallow interior lined with coarse 

 dried grasses; and Mr. Angas tells me that it is built in 

 September, and always placed at a great height in red gum- 

 trees. The eggs are three in number, very long in form, and 

 of a dull bluish white, in some instances tinged with red, 

 marked with large zigzag streakings of brownish red; the 

 average length of the eggs is one inch and eight lines, and 

 breadth one inch and one line. Occasionally eggs are met 

 with which are spotted with black or umber-brown. 



Immature birds of both sexes have the whole of the back 

 clouded with grey, and the bill of a less pure ash-colour. 



Back of the neck, back, upper and under coverts of the 

 wings, basal portion of the spurious wing, upper and under 

 tail-coverts, and base of the tail-feathers white ; remainder of 

 the plumage and the shafts of the white portion of the tail- 



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