296 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



white ; bill dark horn-colour ; irides very dark reddish brown ; 

 legs and feet dark olive-brown. 



Sp. 177. EOPSALTRIA LEUCOGASTER, Gould. 



White-bellied Robin. 



Eupsaltria leucogaster, Gould ia Proc. of Zool. Soc, pax't xiv. p. 19. 

 Muscicapa gularis, Quoy et Gaiin. Voy. de 1' Astrolabe, pi. 4. fig. 1. 



Eopsaltria leucogaster, Gould, Birds of Australia, fol., vol. iii. 

 pi. 13. 



The White-bellied Robin is a native of Western Australia, 

 but is only to be met with in the hilly portions of the country. 

 Gilbert states that the first specimen he procured was killed 

 on the Darling range, near the gorge of the River Murray, 

 at an elevation of about seven or eight hundred feet, and that 

 he afterwards met wdth it on the southern extremity of the 

 same range, between Vasse and Augusta, but that he never 

 observed it on the lower grounds between the mountain- 

 range and the coast. Like the other species of the genus, it 

 was constantly seen clinging to the bark of large upright 

 trees, or straight and small stems, in search of its insect 

 food. It is extremely quiet and secluded in its habits, is 

 almost exclusively confined to the neighbourhood of small 

 mountain-streams, where scarcely any other sound is heard 

 than the rippling and gurgling of the water over the rocks, 

 and on the slightest approach it immediately secretes itself 

 among the thick scrub or brushwood. Its song very closely 

 resembles that of the Fetroiccs. 



Immediately before the eye a small triangular-shaped spot 

 of black ; above the eye a faint line of greyish white ; crown 

 of the head, all the upper smface, wings, and tail dark slate- 

 grey ; the lateral tail-feathers largely tipped with white on 

 their inner webs ; all the under surface white ; irides dark 

 brown ; bill and feet black. 



