^"'u^o''^'] J-^'-K^"-"^'. DisLurcry oj //ic l-'ctiialc Riijoits Scnib-UiicL 263 



move about tlic scrubs. Having located a numl)c'r of the Inrcls 

 before they became silent was a very fortunate I)it of work, for 

 we were thus enabled, by care and patience, t(j find some of them 

 again here and there moving about the scrub debris, where we 

 had originally located them. " They were always silent during the 

 period mentioned, and ran in and out of the heaps of rubbish just 

 as mice would do. A person had to be very alert and keen to get 

 a gUmpse of one under these circumstances. When a male bird 

 called, wc never once heard a reply given by its mate, all the time 

 wc were camped and working there ; a male did not even answer 

 the call of another male. We found the male birds alike in their 

 peculiar habits, as well as regards the remarkable powers of 

 mimicry and other various notes rendered especially during 

 September and Octol)er. Frequently w^hen we " whistled " to one 

 another in the scrub, the bird would mimic our note at once, and 

 this hai)pened many times. It is a most difftcult bird to detect 

 in the thick shaded scrub, owing to its protective colour so closely 

 resembling the brown, dead leaves on the ground, and the piles 

 of rubbish under wliich it loves to dwell. When feeding it often 

 creeps under the dead leaves on the ground, lifting them up with 

 its head as it proceeds. It does a lot of scratching for its food, 

 as its strong legs and claws indicate. Its food consists chiefly of 

 scrub snails' eggs, young tender-shelled scrub snails {Helix and 

 Panda), worms, insects, and the larvse and pupae of various beetles 

 living in the decaying masses of debris and under the fallen leaves. 

 The gizzards preserved from the birds we obtained contain chiefly 

 the broken remains of small beetles. 



\Mien following this small bird it is often very difilicult to locate 

 the sound on account of his ventriloquial powers. Sometimes 

 he appears, to render the sounds cjuite close, whereas the bird 

 is perhaps many yards away ; again, the notes very often appear 

 to be overhead, thougli they are always issued on the ground. 



As far as my years of observation with this species have proved, 

 the bird never goes up into a bush ; the ground is its home. Only 

 a few times cUd I notice it a couple of feet up from the ground, 

 and on each occasion it was not in a bush, but creeping througli 

 a dense and tangled mass of dead fallen vines and trees, huddled 

 and crushed closely together. If it wants to travel from one heap 

 of rubbish in the scrub to another, it does so by following along 

 underneath the side of a log, usually keeping crouched close to 

 the log and ground (mouselike) all the time. The bird will seldom 

 expose itself to view unless it is suddenly chased and something 

 very unusual happens. I have never seen one fly, in fact their 

 very small wings would not permit them to do so. They are won- 

 derfully alert and active birds, and their movements like magic. 



The highest elevation that we met with them on the Macpherson 

 Range was 3,900 feet, in very dense scrub, and there everything 

 was laden with masses of mr)ss, but not looking at its best owing 

 to the drought. Mountain mists now and then from the east 

 greatly assist in keeping the scrul) moist on the higher peaks of 



