Vo\4^" 1 WOI.STKXHOKAIH, Xotcs from Wahrooiuia. 145 



to be seen on the ground or among the trees and plants of every 

 orchard and garden, rarely high even in bush timber. They live on 

 grubs and all kin()s of insects, spiders, beetles, small lizards, and 

 have been seen swallowing with some difficulty large centipedes. 

 One bird conies hopping along every day with cheerful confidence on 

 to anyone's hand tor cheese, and has been a family pet for a long 

 time. It will hop about us as we lie reading, and sometimes wakes 

 us up early by coming on to our pillows (two of the family sleep 

 outside). This is quite an eld bird— a male with chest a clear blue- 

 grey, not streaked like that of the female. Its nest was placed in 

 the young growth from a Casuarina stump about 3 feet from the 

 ground. One young bird only was reared which came to us like the 

 old bird for a while, then disappeared. It had a rufous eyebrow 

 and a generally li^^rhter colour. The rich, harmonious note for which 

 these birds are famous is heard in the nesting season only. 



Necsitta chrysoptera. Orange-winged Tree-Runner.— These are plenti- 

 ful. They go about in little flocks, which give mournful notes as 

 they fly over. They feed, too, in small companies, running along 

 the branches and the tree trunks, usually head downwards, probing 

 with their sharp beaks every little crack and hollow in the bark or 

 wood in their search for insects, and uttering a little "Chip, chip" all 

 the time. One has to observe a little party at work in thick scrub 

 such as Casuarina to see their pretty marking and coloration and 

 their yellow legs and feet. One can get quite close: they are so 

 hungry and so busy, and always seem in such a hurry — going like a 

 flash from one tree to another and displaying as they go the band 

 of colour on the wings, which is bright rufous rather than orange. 

 A pair nested in October and in January (perhaps same pair) high 

 in two eucalypts 20 yards apart in the back paddock. The nest is 

 built en a perpindicular branch usually dead, at a junction, and is 

 difficult to find unless the bird can be followed to it with the eye. 



Cliniacteris leucophaea. White-throated Tree-creeper. — Very 

 numerous, especially in autumn. They live on the same kind of in- 

 sect food as the Sittellas and obtain it in a similar way, creeping 

 up (never down) the tree trunk spirally or winding round the main 

 limbs and suddenly darting away to the base of a neighbouring tree 

 to begin another s; scent, often giving loud and shrill piping calls and 

 a pretty, soft, ratt.e note. Seen closely, they are beautifully marked 

 (female having a clear orange spot near the ear); like the Sittella 

 they show the rufous band on wing when they fly. Being rarely on 

 the ground, they are awkward in an unaccustomed place such as the 

 flat side of the bathing pool; on going in, the bird splashes and ducks 

 and gives a loud cry between the splashings, which no other bird does. 



Dicaeum hirundinaceum. Mistletoe-Bird. — Though common, this 

 exquisite little bird (the male) is not very frequently seen notwith- 

 standing its bright red breast, being very small and keeping aloft, 

 its shrill little chirp is often heard from the tree-tops or lower down 

 from the clumps of the parasitic mistletoe ( Lorantbus ), whose berries 

 are greedily eaten and look as though they might choke the bird in 

 its efforts to swallow them. It comes down at times into the garden 

 trees in search of small insects — its principal food. A male bird 

 was observed, one day for quite a little while hanging by its feet 

 from a clothes line head downwards like an acrobat. The male only 

 has the gorgeous colours, female being inconspicuous and not much 

 seen. The nest is made of light-coloured woolly-looking material ob- 

 tained from various plants, and is sometimes decorated with small 

 globules of red gum like rubies — a wonderful structure. 



^^gintha temporalis. Red-browed Firetail. — Very plentiful during 

 April. Commoner than Sparrows. They were all round in flocks and 

 about the garden, where their sibilant whistling was heard all day, 

 and little flocks were flushed where the grass and weeds were long. 



