Vol. IX. 



igoy. 



1 Le Souef, Description of a New Shrike-Robin. J J. 



The nest was well made, but seemed smaller than that of 

 E. chrysorrhous. At this part of the range the country was 

 very open and dry, and at the same time exceedingly stony, 

 and partly covered with heath and stunted timber, such as 

 Eucalyptus, Banksia, Casuarina, Melaleuca, &c. These Robins 

 appeared to be the only birds frequenting this particular 

 part of the range. Driving on, I saw a pair of these birds 

 feeding two young ones that had evidently just left the nest. 

 Shortly after I found another nest, placed about 30 feet from 

 the ground in the upright fork of a Casuarina, and it also 

 contained two young birds. During my second visit to the 

 Herberton Range, extending from 29th November to ist 

 December of the same year, I saw these birds again, but only in 

 the open forest. I was fortunate in finding a nest containing 

 two eggs on 9th December, the nest being situated in a 

 Casuarina tree, about 20 feet from the ground, and within 6 feet 

 of the nest of a Victoria Rifle-Bird. This nest and eggs were 

 described in The Emu, viii. (June, 1909), pp. 284, 285, as 

 belonging to E. magnirostris. I never heard the birds utter 

 any note during my wanderings among them." 



[I am indebted to my cousin, Mrs. Ellis Rowan, for the 

 original painting of this new species. See Coloured Plate III. — 

 D. Le S.] 



Birds Observed between Kalgoorlie and Eucia, W.A. 



By Ciias. G. Gibson, Perth (W.A.) 



In order that these notes may be the better understood, a very 

 brief general description of the country lying between Kalgoorlie 

 and the South Australian border is necessary. The total direct 

 distance between these two points is approximately 450 miles, 

 and for our purpose this may be roughly subdivided as follows : 

 — For the first 80 miles (from Kalgoorlie) the country consists 

 of salmon-barked gum {Eucalyptus salnwnophloia) and gimlet 

 gum {E. salubris) forests, with occasional open salt-plains and 

 blue bush plains, and here and there small patches of mulga 

 {Acacia), this latter class of timber gradually replacing the 

 salmon-barked gum and gimlet gum as we go north. East of 

 the salmon-barked gum is a belt of spinifex country, roughly a 

 hundred miles in width. This runs south to the coast and 

 north indefinitely, rapidly widening in this direction ; it is usually 

 covered with a fairly dense growth of mallee — often of large size 

 — with here and there small patches of salmon-barked and 

 gimlet gums, with small salt and blue bush flats. The sand-hill 

 country on the northern portion of this belt and around Queen 

 Victoria Spring carries, in addition to the mallee, pines {Callitris), 

 a few wattles and desert white gums {Eucalyptus redunca ?), 

 these latter often of fair size. 



