66 THE NATURALIST IN AUSTRALIA. 



cabin, and, after due admonition, was released on parole. The author's Firetailed 

 finches did not dance to one another, as do the Poephilse, but, at the same time, 

 one especially fine little fellow, the hero of the previous episode, would hop 

 up and down opposite to his own image in a mirror, and, to indulge his peculiar 

 predilection, he had a small piece of looking-glass fixed to his cage. This bird 

 would also sometimes dance in a similar manner on the table to his owners, with a 

 piece of grass or cotton in his beak. This particular bird, like one of the Poephilse, 

 was a most confirmed and crusty bachelor, or possibly was only awaiting the advent 

 of his astral affinity. At any rate, he behaved so tyrannically to all other comrades, 

 both male and female, as to necessitate the provision of a separate establishment, 

 in which he was familiarly distinguished by the somewhat derogatory title of 

 "the Gaol bird." 



Among the claimants for recognition as Australian songsters, a prominent 

 place must be allotted to the common House-swallow of Western Australia, Hirundo 

 neoxena, whose melody always struck me as being considerably more varied and 

 prolonged than that of its European congener. A company of these birds, seated 

 in a row along the street telegraph wires just outside the hotel window, as commonly 

 happens in an Australian township, will regale you with a most recherche serenade. 

 As a combined symphony, however, there are probably no birds that produce so 

 singularly pleasing an effect as the little Bell-bird, Myzanthus melanophrys, of the 

 Southern Colonies. The Gippsland district of Victoria is especially favoured with 

 its presence. Riding through the dense eucalyptus forests of that province, the 

 traveller, such being the writer's experience, suddenly comes upon a spot, commonly 

 a glade near a running stream, from whence on all sides he is greeted with, as it 

 were, the tinkling of little silver bells, all harmoniously blending with one another, 

 though differing individually in their precise timbre. A hasty glance around fails 

 to discover the authors of the fairy music, and it is only by a painstaking search 

 that the hidden musicians are revealed in the form of a small olive-yellow bird 

 that is most difficult to detect among the masses of foliage of the same tint. 



Some of the exquisite little so-called Australian Wrens, genus Malurus, are by 

 no means indifferent songsters, and are so naturally tame that, by imitating their 

 note as nearly as possible with the mouth, they can be attracted to within a few 

 feet distance only of the observer. In shape, size and deportment these little birds 

 very closely resemble the English and European Long-tailed Titmouse, sEgithalus 

 vagans, but are far more resplendently arrayed, their gay liveries including tints in which, 



