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Bird Life about Moree.



indicates their whereabouts by his warble, which is very similar to

that of a Lamberz Wren, yet sweeter and shriller. We soon found

that they could only be located by their call, like the Emeu Wrens, as

they seldom show on the top of the bushes like the Common or

Lamberz or Red-backed species.


With infinite trouble they had to be rounded up, doubly hard on

account of the heat, the sun parching us to an extent that we could

hardly speak. The prickles of the Roly-Poly were a veritable scourge

to our bodies, and the mosquitoes and flies—well, it is over, and

remembrance always modifies the evils ! But it is only the extreme

enthusiast, amounting almost to a crank, who will leave the comforts

of a home and spend a holiday undergoing discomforts (to say the least

of it) for the sake of getting a certain species of bird. However, all is

well that ends well; we were successful in the end, and brought away

with us from Moree quite a number of these little treasures, now doing

well in my aviaries and that of my friend. We were fortunate in

locating the nests of these birds later on, and might have saved our¬

selves a lot of hardships had we seen them before. It appears they do

not build in the Roly-Poly where they generally live, but in Acacia

bushes inaccessible by virtue of their strong thorns. The remarkable

thing is that most pairs we saw breeding were grey birds—that is to say,

the cock bird out of colour. Quite contrary to other Wrens, which

breed when the male is in his “ wedding dress ”. It is a matter of fact

that we only saw four coloured cock birds, two of which we brought

home, out of about ten pair. I need hardly say that our excitement

was intense when we were able to admire our first coloured male bird

in the cage. These birds must fly long distances for water, unless they

ken of a little pool unknown to us. In the open and at a distance the

coloured bird looks like a black and white Butterfly ; it is only when

seen in cage or aviary that its beautiful hues appear. The whole

bird is a rich cornflower blue, only the shoulders where the cover-

feathers are enlarged, or seem to be, are white. The flight feathers are

a bluish-grey. They are the smallest species of Wren I have known,

and exceptionally slender. To my sorrow several escaped by squeezing

through half-inch wire mesh. They are exceptionally easy to get on to

artificial food, and my misgivings on this point were quite unfounded



