46 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



rainy season begins towards the latter end of December and 

 lasts throughout January and February, and it is then that all 

 vegetable growth takes place. The plains become clothed with 

 grasses, and insectivorous, grain-eating, and aquatic birds find 

 food sufficiently abundant to enable them to undertake the duties 

 of rearing their young. Rain occasionally falls during the winter 

 months, but never in any amount, tlie days being usually dry and 

 warm and the nights cold, but rarely to the extent of frost. 



CoRVUS CORONOIDES. — The Crow is fairly numerous, building 

 in the trees along the creeks during and after the wet season, but 

 the Raven has not been identified with any degree of certainty. 



Struthidea cinerea. — The Grey Jumper is occasionally seen, 

 but is more numerous further north and on the Flinders. 



Chlamydodera maculata. — The Spotted Bower-bird is the 

 usual species met with, and is found near Cloncurry on the 

 scrubbier creeks. The bowers, adorned with the usual heaps of 

 land shells, bones, feathers, and other rubbish, are usually to be 

 found under an overhanging bauhinia or acacia. Any nests 

 found were placed in giddia trees, eggs being laid in January and 

 February. 



T/ENiOPYGiA CASTANOTis. — The Chestnut-cared is by far the 

 commonest and most numerous of the finches all over the district. 

 It is found in flocks of greater or less magnitude along every creek, 

 and its nests are seen in every conceivable situation from the 

 under part of an inhabited nest of the Allied Kite on a high tree 

 to the lowest bush. 



Emblema picta. — This beautiful little Painted Finch is only met 

 with in the ranges south of Cloncurry. 



Bathilda ruficauda. — The Red-faced Finch shares with 

 Bicheno's Little Finch the honour of coming second to the 

 Chestnut-eared in point of numbers. The Chestnut-breasted, 

 Munia castaneithorax, the Black-throated, Poephila cincta, and 

 the Gouldian Finch, Poephila gouldice, are less frequently occurring 

 forms. 



Mirafra horsfieldi. — The Bush-Lark is a songster which 

 evidently finds the long grass of the plains to its liking, as the 

 species is well represented. 



Cinclorhamphus cruralis and rufescens. — Both these Song- 

 Larks are present. 



Climacterls, sp.— a Tree-creeper, very dark in colour, is 

 commonest in the ranges. 



SiTTELLA leucoptera.— The White-winged Tree-creeper is 

 usually found amongst the giddia and box timber, and nests in 

 the wet season. 



Entomophila rufigularis.— The eggs of the Red-lhroated 

 Honey-eater show the same variations noted by Mr. Kearlland in 

 the north-west. The nest is an elongated bag-shaped structure, 



