226 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



served, was formed of small twigs and narrow strips of the 

 bark of a Melaleuca. The eggs were two in number, of a 

 beautiful pearly flesli-wliite, regularly spotted all over with 

 dull reddish orange and umber-brown ; like the eggs of the 

 other species of the genus, they are also sprinkled over with 

 bluish markings, which appear as if beneath the surface of 

 the shell ; their medium length is one inch, and breadth nine 

 lines." 



The sexes are so nearly alike in plumage, that they are not 

 readily distinguished from each other ; but the male is some- 

 what larger than his mate. 



All the upper surface, wings, and tail olive-brown ; a faint 

 line over the eye and the chin white ; all the under surface 

 pale buff, the feathers of the throat and breast with a broad 

 stripe of brown down the centre ; irides dark brownish red ; 

 bill blackish grey ; tarsi bluish grey. 



Sp. 128. COLLURICINCLA RUFIGASTER, Gould. 



Rusty-breasted Shrike-Thrush. 



Colluricincla rufogaster, Goukl in Proc. of ZooL Soc, part xiii. 1845, 

 p. 80. 



Colluricincla rufogaster, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. i. 

 Introd., p. xxxvii. 



I assigned this name to a bird sent to me by the late F. 

 Strange from the brushes of the Clarence in New South 

 Wales ; it may hereafter prove to be identical with the last- 

 mentioned species, C. parvula, the form and admeasurements 

 being precisely the same ; but the bird from New South 

 Wales has a lighter- coloured bill, and the whole of the under 

 surface washed with deep rufous. 



Strange informed me that the bird " is tolerably common 

 in the brushes skirting the lower part of the Clarence and 

 Richmond rivers ; but I never saw it out of the brushes or 

 on the ground, as you may C. harmonica and the other species 



