412 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



upon the seeds of which it chiefly subsists. It is particularly 

 abundant in the neighbourhood of Sydney ; even in the Bo- 

 tanic Garden numbers may always be seen flitting from 

 border to border. It is easily domesticated, and it is of a 

 lively disposition in captivity, even old birds becoming per- 

 fectly reconciled after a few days. In the autumn it is gre- 

 garious, and Mr. Caley states it often assembles in large flocks ; 

 in the spring they are mostly seen in pairs, and then build 

 their large and conspicuous nest, which is formed of dead 

 grass, lined with thistle down, in any low bush adapted for a 

 site, but in none more frequently than in the beautiful Lep- 

 iosjpermum squarrosum. 



The eggs are five or six in number, of a beautiful fleshy 

 white, seven lines long by five and a half lines broad. 



Crown of the head bluish grey ; upper surface, wings, and 

 tail olive-brown ; under surface white ; patch over the eye 

 and rump crimson ; irides brownish red ; eyelash narrow, 

 naked and black ; bill fine blood -red, with the ridge of the 

 upper and the lower part of the under mandible black ; legs 

 yellowish white. 



Genus BATH I LD A, Reichenbach. 



This genus has been established for the beautiful Estrelda 

 rnficauda of the folio edition of the Birds of Australia, a deli- 

 cately coloured bird, rendered conspicuously different from 

 other Finches by the spotted markings of the chest. 



Sp. 254. BATHILDA RUFICAUDA, Gould. 



Red-tailed Finch. 



Amadina rnficauda, Gould in Proc. of Zool. See, part iv. p. 106. 

 Bathilda rnficauda, Reich. Sing-Vogel. 



Estrelda rnficauda, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. iii. pi. 84. 

 I observed this beautiful Finch rather thinly dispersed on 



