FINE FEATHERS AND FINE BIRDS 149 



Spring has died out of the revelling Whistler, 

 though, to be sure, he does not altogether exhaust 

 the throbbing melody of old. Occasionally you may 

 hear quite a rich canticle in the peace of Autumn, 

 but "never a one so gay" as that joyous greeting to 

 the Spring. 



We leave now the birds of striking plumage for 

 a relative whose dress and disposition are infinitely 

 more modest. It does not seek the society of man 

 in the fraternal way of the Rufous Whistler; nor 

 has it the general distribution of the birds of the 

 golden breasts. John Gilbert, the able English 

 naturalist who was killed by North Queensland 

 blacks (when with the Leichhardt expedition of 

 1845), met with this sober little bird in the dry Mal- 

 lee areas of Victoria and South Australia, and Gould 

 paid his tireless assistant the compliment of naming 

 the species after him P. gilberti, the Gilbert 

 Whistler. This use of proper (human) names in 

 bird-nomenclature was not, thanks be, a failing with 

 Gould, but Gilbert was worthy of the honor. 



In color the Gilbert Whistler is closer to the reds 

 than the golds among its kind, the generally greyish 

 tint of the plumage of both sexes being relieved by 

 reddish-buff on the throat of the male bird. But in 

 its housekeeping it more resembles the Yellow- 

 breasts ; the Thrush-like nest is much more substan- 

 tial than the rude home of the Rufous species, and 

 the pretty eggs, with their pattern-rings of brown 

 4 and blue spots on a white background, approximate 

 to those of the Golden-breast. If there is any appli- 

 cation to birds in the declaration that "by their 

 fruits ye shall know them," the scientists are wrong 



