34 



Wilson, Oologists in the Mallee. 



r Emu 

 List Ju 



ly 



used, which is generally uttered when the bird is perched on some dead 

 twig close to the ground, may be represented as " Chu chuc " the second 

 syllable being the louder. They feed mostly on the ground, and are able 

 to run very swiftly when disturbed. We took one nest, containing a fresh 

 egg, within 150 yards of our tent at the boring camp. 



Hylacola cauta. Red-rumped Ground-Wren. — These shy little aviformes 

 are very common right through the Mallee, and we spent a considerable 

 amount of time searching for their nests, which are sometimes beautifully 

 hidden. In places where surveying operations had been carried on, straight 

 Hnes cut through the scrub were often met with, and it was amongst the 

 deh-is on these lines that the Hylacola loved to build. More often, how- 

 ever, the nest was placed in the fallen bark at the foot of the mallee saplings, 

 and in these cases it harmonized with its surroundings so well as to make it 



Turpentine-bush and big mallee. 



FROM A PHOTO. BY A. H. E. MATTINGLEY. 



an object extremely difficult to detect. They leave the nest at the slightest 

 sign of danger, and run oft' quietly to a distance, when they usually utter 

 two or three low notes. Nearly every patch of turpentine scrub had a few 

 families of Hylacolas amongst it. 



