()8 INTr. T. Carter (m some [Ibis, 



that it was the head of a bird, so I shot at it with my 

 •410 gnn, and it disappeared in the hole. Upon climbing 

 the tree I found that it was hollow nearly down to the 

 ground, and, thrusting my arm in, could feel a bird flut- 

 tering upwards into the upper part of the trunk, which 

 was also hollow. I then withdrew my arm, ])lugged the 

 hole with my cap, aud from the ground carefully examined 

 the lower {)art of the tree, and through a crevice was 

 fortunate enough to catch sight of the extended wing of 

 a bird, with a buff band across it, so knew I had got a 

 Tree-Oreeper at last. I then cut away the extremely hard 

 wood from the edges of the crevice with my knife, until it 

 was large enough to enable me to extract the dead bird, which 

 was an undoubted fledgling of W. m. wellsi. I then plugged 

 this hole, and also the larger one above, with bunches of dry 

 grass, and withdrew some little distance to await the return of 

 the parent birds, both of whichi obtained in aboutfive minutes; 

 they were just commencing to moult. I then walked l)ack 

 to the station to obtain a small axe, and returning with 

 it to the tree in the afternoon, cut the latter open, but could 

 not And the other young bird. 



On the following day I saw another pair of the birds, and 

 by watching them, located another nest, about twelve feet 

 from the ground, in a crevice formed by a split in the main 

 fork of a large, dead Jam tree. The nest was simply a large 

 handful of sheeps' wool, laid on chips of wood, about 

 eighteen inches from the top of the crevice. It contained 

 two young birds, about half-grown. No wool was seen in 

 the first tree that I cut open the previous day. I saw several 

 other adult birds in the next two days of my visit, but found 

 no more nests, and was apparently too late for any eggs, 

 but have no doubt myself that the egg obtained in 1900 

 was the egg of this new subspecies, which is the only 

 Tree-Creeper found in that area. In habits these birds 

 much resemble W. r. rufa, often feeding on the ground, 

 on fallen trunks and branches of trees laid on the ground, 

 as well as on the trunks of standing trees. 



