OF SOUTHERN AUSTRALIA. 85 



and evidently she has the whole burden of building, for I have 

 not been able to detect a male assisting in this work. During 

 incubation the female leaves the nest frequently to feed. 



The evening of the first day the young leave the nest is an 

 anxious time for the parents. Much calling and persuasion is 

 needed to get the young family to follow to a suitable 

 perching place for the night. When this is at 1 ast accompHshed, 

 one may, with great caution, get a peep at them all in a row, 

 with an old bird at each end. liow, dense, broad-leaved 

 shrubs, eucalyptus trees, if low, or dense masses of broad- 

 leaved sword-grass are the usual camps chosen. 



Young Wrens seem to lose their early notes about the time 

 they have fully acquired the song. July and August are the 

 earliest months in which I have detected the young Wrens 

 practising the song, though to some it may come earher than 

 to others. Besides the song there are the notes of alarm, 

 harsh and quick, the low note of satisfaction uttered with 

 every peck at an insect, especially when the family has 

 aUghted on a good patch ; and sometimes, not often, a low, 

 melancholy note uttered at each series of hops. In spring 

 the males sometimes make a continued utterance of what 

 resembles half the usual song. 



One use of the song is to keep the family together and 

 acquaint each other of their whereabouts. One may often 

 see a Wren which has been left behind mount the topmost 

 twig of a bush and sing till answered from a distance. Then 

 it will fly off in that direction and rejoin the others. 



Gould's Wren is not gregarious, though two or three 

 famihes may hunt over each other's ground. They never 

 join in a community like the Tits and Chats, but each family 

 keeps, if it can, to its own particular ground, and has its own 

 special camp. 



Mr. Graham, in a letter to me, says : — 



" In 1898 I wrote to you about three males attending a nest 



