^°l'.,i^' 1 Cu AS ULER, Field Notes on White-browed Field-Wren. 230 



constructed ot dried grasses, bits of bark, and a few skeleton gum- 

 leaves. Thej^ were warmly lined with rabbit fur and feathers. The 

 nest is dome-shaped, with the opening near the top It is built 

 usually on the ground under a tussock of grass, or in the heart of a 

 dwarf casuarina. The description of a bird about one week old is 

 as follows : — Abdomen creamy-buft ; chest and fianks pale buft 

 streaked with black ; back dark olive-green, centred black ; head 

 quills blue, not yet broken ; primaries and secondaries breaking, 

 black, tipped with buff ; tail half an inch long, breaking, buff at 

 tips, (iajie yellow ; irides brown ; legs light horn : l)ill dark horn. 



Further Notes from the Stirling Ranges, W.A. 



Bv F. Lawson Whitlock, Young's Siding. D.R., W.A. 



In the spring of iqio I was collecting eggs and nests, on behall 

 of Mr. H. L. White, of Belltrees, New South Wales, in the Stirling 

 Ranges, and an account of the trip appeared in The Emu* I 

 had to leave the locality before the season was really far ad- 

 vanced to search for certain rarer birds still believed to inhabit 

 our south-coastal region. Naturally, my work was not complete 

 in the Ranges, and a further trip was necessary to make it so. 



The winter of 191 1 proving very mild, with a rainfall con- 

 siderably below the average, 1 arranged to leave home on ist 

 August, arriving at my hunting-grounds five days later. Birds 

 were already nesting, and by the end of the month the young of 

 certain species were on the wing. I was particularly anxious to 

 obtain further information regarding the nesting habits of 

 Cindosonia casta no not urn, Hylacola cauta, Sericornis maculata, 

 Falcimciilns leiicogaster. Malurus pidcherriniiis, and a few other 

 species of desser importance. How far I was successful the 

 following notes will show. To the list of birds found in the 

 Ranges I can add only one or two species which are not mentioned 

 by other explorers or in my previous notes. They are : — Petrcrca 

 goodenovii (Red-capped Robin). .Egialitis cuciiUatits (Hooded 

 Dottrel). Heteropygia acuminata (Sharp-tailed Stint). The 

 presence of the two former may have been due to the dry season 

 in the interior of this State. In the previous season I had found 

 several pairs of a Hylacola inhabiting stony hillsides covered with 

 low scrub. 1 was too late to find the nest, as the young were 

 already on the wing. In my previous paper I referred to this 

 species as Hylacola pyrrhopygia. On referring a skin, however. 

 to experts, I find that I was wrong, the bird being really Hylacola 

 cauta. I determined to have a good hunt for the nest, which is 

 described in A. J. Campbell's "Nests and Eggs" as always a 

 difficult one to find — an opinion which I can now thoroughly 

 endorse. I was not long in locating two pairs of birds, though 

 the species is distinctly local, and rare, in the Stirling Ranges. 



* Emu, vol. X., p. 305. 



