THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 157 



Natural History "), that Australia, strangely, is without finches. 

 Thus our twenty-two species are elsewhere placed in this 

 case, but retained under other systems of classification. 



In early spring the migration of the Red-eyebrowed 

 Finch, Estrilda temporalis, Lath., south into this district 

 is noted by seeing small flocks of fifteen or twenty birds 

 flocking into the creek bushes, their gentle chirps conveying 

 their thanks for warm weather and sunshine upon the 

 fields familiar to most of them. They do not begin house- 

 building at once, for it is in October and November that 

 I have observed their bulky nests placed a dozen feet from the 

 ground in high shrubs. This little bird, 4 inches long, delights 

 in building a nest 9 inches high by 12 inches broad, of coarse grass, 

 and more like that of a sparrow, also a finch. Into this con- 

 spicuous nest it places five to eight small white eggs, and 

 carefully tends the rising generation, which differ from their 

 parents in not having the crimson bill and patch over eye. The 

 upper tail coverts are similar to the old birds' before leaving the 

 nest. This little hard-billed bird cleanses itself by bathing in 

 pools, and, with the necessary care, upon a tree-trop or a lateral 

 branch, preens its feathers to its satisfaction. Below the 

 Dargo plateau of North Gippsland I remember seeing, as late as 

 2nd February, 1895, more than a dozen nests, all built in dead 

 bushes some 10 ft. from the ground. This was the last note of 

 the season, and flocks, in timber born, were everywhere hurrying 

 along the creeks. 



The Spotted-sided Finch, E. guttata, Shaw, inhabits the 

 larger timber, feeds upon the ground preferably, and builds a 

 loosely constructed nest in the high branches of a eucalyptus. 

 In matured plumage the effect of the blotch of red, while quickly 

 passing under a grove of wattles, is a striking one. Certainly I 

 thought a tropical stranger had come amongst us when I saw it 

 for the first time on the wing. 



Of true Babbling Thrushes we have four of twenty-three Aus- 

 tralian species, and a strange group they will seem to form to those 

 who know the Calamanthus and Cincloramphus, as the latter 

 is also placed here. Among them are the Scrub Robins (Pycnop- 

 tilus), Coach-whip Bird, Striated Field Lark (Calamanthus), and 

 the Spotted Ground-Thrush, Cinclosoma punctatum, Lath. (W.) 

 This last bird associates in small flocks or in pairs upon the ground 

 in the vicinity of gravel beds where present, and when it rises for 

 flight the course is an undulatory one. In April little flocks are 

 seen ; some fifteen to twenty birds assemble. It is much more 

 difficult to secure than a quail. If a species of quail rises it does 

 so near you, and the experienced gunner kills the bird ; but the 

 thrush, which flies also quickly, with a burr, rises so far ahead 

 that a shot, fired otherwise than at random, serves only the pur- 



