SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 57 



family parties like other wrens. Its rich black tints contrast strikingly with 

 its orange back, making the adult male a very handsome little fellow. He 

 has the stupid habit, however, of our Blue Wren, of showing himself off in a 

 prominent position, a habit often responsible for his undoing should a 

 Butcher-bird catch sight of his showy coat. 



This bird ranges over the greater part of the southern and eastern portions 

 of Australia. In the northern parts of Australia its place is taken by a 

 closely related species, M alums cruentatus, which Gould called Brown's Wren, 

 after one of the officers of H.M.S. Beagle, who collected it at Port Essington, 

 in the Northern Territory. I met with this species in the grass-land of 

 north-western Australia, in the vicinity of King's Sound. It is a smaller 

 wren than the southern one, with the back a deeper rich red. 



The Black-headed 8 uperb- warbler is a name also given to this bird, but 

 the one I have favoured is much less cumbersome as a popular name and 

 makes acknowledgment, too, of the characteristic and rich colouring of the 

 back. The nest is of the usual oval domed form with a hole-in the side ; it 

 is constructed of dry grass, lined inside with finer materials, and contains 

 three or four roundish glossy-white eggs, blotched and spotted with reddish- 

 brown on the apex. 



