600 Mr. T. Carter on the Birds of [Ibis, 



feet liigh, through which it kept twisting about. Its first 

 appearance suggested a rat, but, on getting close to it, 

 the bird was taken to be a Cinclosoma. A hasty sua[) 

 shot was fired at it as it ran below a bush, but a careful 

 search all through it revealed nothing, and a miss was 

 ft.ared. However, a few seconds afterwards the bird was 

 seen, a few feet away on the farther side of the bush, on its 

 back on the ground, dead. It was a Western Grass-Wren, 

 and not a soul within miles to share the joy of such a 

 " find " ! Within five minutes of this incident, a brown bird 

 was seen as if laboriously climbing up the twigs of a large 

 wattle-bush, in much the same way as a parrot. When 

 I was within about twenty yards of it, I ''chirped" with 

 my lips, and immediately the bird turned and faced me, 

 hanging head downwards from a small branch held with 

 its feet, and having its feathers puffed out, wings partly 

 expanded, and tail erect with rectrices spread out. It was 

 shot, and proved to be a male DiapJiorillas textilis, as was 

 the first bird. Neither of them appeared to be breeding or 

 uttered any noise. A careful search all round the vicinity 

 of this camp for three days failed to find any more of these 

 birds ; and none were seen at the next camp on the west 

 side of the island. 



On May 7, when camped on the east side of the island, 

 I was crawlino- under large clumps of " Ming-ar " bushes, 

 which have extremely dense masses of foliage mixed with 

 interlacing twigs. The ground below was bare sand, and 

 tiie light dim through the thick foliage. I kept "chirping" 

 witii my lips as I crawled along, and occasionally sat down 

 below the big bushes to have a spell, and when near the 

 end of this patcli of scrub, about twelve feet high, a Grass- 

 Wren suddenly appeared, without noise, and momentarily 

 perched on a twig about three feet above the ground. 



The following day (May 8), when searching some smaller 

 scrub not far from the last-mentioned place, a bird was 

 noticed inside a "Ming-ar" bush, and shot. It was killed, 

 but remained suspended by its feet, hanging with head down 

 inside the bush. Upon extricating it from the twigs, a noise 



