230 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



among tlie thickly-foliaged trees, particularly such as grow 

 in quiet secluded places, and is a most active little bird, 

 running over the trunks and branches of the trees with the 

 greatest facility, and tearing off the bark in its progress in 

 search of insects : the habits in fact of the present and Frontal 

 Shrike-Tit are so closely similar that a further description is 

 unnecessary. Its flight is of short duration, and is seldom 

 employed for any other purpose than that of flitting from 

 branch to branch, or from one tree to another. Its note is 

 a series of mournful sounds, the last of which is drawn out 

 to a great length. 



Gilbert, while staying in the Toodyay district in the month 

 of October, found the nest of this species among the topmost 

 and weakest perpendicular branches of a Eucalyptus, at a 

 height of fifty feet : it was of a deep cup-shaped form, com- 

 posed of the stringy bark of the gum-tree, and lined with fine 

 grasses, the whole matted together externally with cobwebs ; 

 the eggs, which are three or four in number, are of a glossy 

 white with numerous minute speckles of dark olive most 

 thickly disposed at the larger end ; they are seven-eighths of 

 an inch long by five-eighths of an inch in breadth. It is a 

 shy bird, but when breeding becomes more bold and familiar. 



The stomach is extremely muscular, and its food consists 

 principally of coleoptera. 



The male has immediately above the bill a narrow band of 

 white, from which, down the centre of the head, is a broad 

 stripe of black feathers forming a crest ; sides of the face and 

 head white, divided by a line of black, which passes through 

 the eye to the nape ; back, rump, shoulders, and wing-coverts 

 bright yellowish olive; primaries and secondaries blackish 

 brown, margined with olive-yellow ; tail-feathers blackish 

 brown, margined with olive-yellow, except the two outer, 

 which are grey, broadly margined with white ; all the tail-fea- 

 thers tipped with white, the white diminishing on each feather 

 as it approaches the centre of the tail ; throat black ; chest. 



