446 Mr. E. P. Ramsay on Birds breeding near Sydney. 



reappearing again many yards in advance. It is a very pleasing 

 and lively little bird, and seems to love solitude. I have never 

 seen it perch upon a tree, although I have spent several 

 evenings in watching it. It runs with rapidity over the ground, 

 and over heaps of rubbish left by the floods, where it seems to 

 get a good deal of its food. Sometimes it will remain for a 

 minute on the point of a rock, then as it were falling over the 

 edge, repeat its shrill cry, and dash off again into some hole in 

 the cliffs. 



The nest is of an oblong form, very large for the size of the 

 bird, with an entrance in the side about two inches wide. It is 

 generally suspended under some overhanging rock, and is com- 

 posed of fibrous roots interwoven with the webs of spiders, the 

 birds having a preference for those webs which contain the 

 spiders' eggs, and that are of a greenish colour. The mass does 

 not assume the shape of a nest until a few days before it is com- 

 pleted, when a hole for entrance is made, and the inside warmly 

 lined with feathers; however, even when finished it is a very 

 ragged structure, and easily shaken to pieces. The birds take 

 a long time building their nests : one I found on the 6th August, 

 1861, was not finished until the 25th of the same month ; on 

 the 30th we took three eggs from it. This nest was suspended 

 from the roof of a small cave in the gully of George's River, 

 near M'Quarie Fields, and was composed of rootlets and spiders' 

 webs, warmly lined with feathers and opossum-fur; it contained 

 three eggs, of a pure and glossy white, each egg being 8^ lines 

 in length by 6^ in breadth. (Sometimes the eggs are 9, but 

 more often 8 and 8^ lines long). They are very similar in ap- 

 pearance to those of Latham's Grass-Finch {Amadina lathami). 



The breeding-time lasts from August to December, during 

 which time two broods are raised. 



I have never found more than one nest or one pair of birds 

 near the same part of the gully ; and I do not think they will 

 make their nests near each other, much less under the same rock. 



5. The Wedgetailed Eagle [Aquila fucosa, Gould, B. 

 Austr. i. pi. 1. 



So much has been said upon the habits of this bird in Mr. 

 Gould's work, that I shall not take up time with any remarks 



