INSESSORES. 357 



of hopping about on the ground, and from stone to stone, with 

 its tail erect, in search of insects, upon which it solely sub- 

 sists. It rarely flies more than a few yards at a time, but 

 secretes itself in the midst of the little thicket in which it 

 has taken up its abode. The male constantly cheers his mate 

 \yith a pretty lively song, which, although neither loud nor 

 voluminous, serves to give life to its secluded abode, which 

 in many instances is in the depths of the forests, where few 

 sounds are heard except the monotonous note of the Honey- 

 sucker, and the perpetual rippling of the rivulet as it steals 

 over the stony bed of the gully. 



The sexes presenting no difference in the colouring of the 

 plumage, by dissection alone can they be distinguished. 



There is but little difficulty in finding the nest ; for al- 

 though it is in general very artfully concealed among the 

 herbage at the base of a tree, on the edge of a shelving 

 bank, or among the thick tangle of the scrub, the actions of 

 the old birds soon indicate its site. It is of rather a large 

 size and of a domed form, outwardly composed of any coarse 

 materials at hand, such as leaves, tufts of grass, roots, &c., 

 the interior beino- formed of similar substances, but of a 

 finer kind, and the whole carefully lined with feathers. The 

 eggs, which are large for the size of the bird, are three in 

 number, of a reddish white, curiously freckled and marked 

 all over with reddish brown, particularly at the larger end, 

 where the markings assume the form of a zone ; they are ten 

 and a half lines long by eight lines broad. 



Lores blackish brown, above which an obscure stripe of 

 white ; crown of the head and all the upper surface, wings, 

 and tail dark olive-brown with a tinge of red, which becomes 

 more conspicuous on the rump and tail-feathers ; spurious 

 wing blackish brown, each feather margined with white ; 

 throat greyish white, spotted with blackish brown ; chest and 

 centre of the abdomen brownish yellow, the former singularly 

 but more obscurely spotted than the throat ; flanks chestnut- 



