Some Colony Birds. 323 



specific name. " the little mouse," from its mouse-like way of running 

 about trunks of trees, under the eaves of houses and other such places in 

 search of spiders of which it is very fond. 



It is first cousin to our English wren which it greatly resembles in 

 colour and form. But it is more engaging in its habits, being in this 

 respect our robin out here. He will come into our houses in a confiden- 

 tial way, chuckling greetings as he goes. Sometimes he brings his wife 

 and then the pair of them will go running along the pictures and shelves 

 on a tour of inspection, making comments to each other ; and now and 

 then the little lord will break out into a song just to relieve his merry 

 little soul. The song is a catch of twelve or more notes with a preliminary 

 strophe on a lower key. I have noticed that he repeats the same 

 arrangement of notes many times ; but he changes it at intervals. 

 Perhaps he tunes up each morning for the day. 



He is called the God-bird on account of his predilection for churches 

 when choosing a site for his nest. I took a nest from a country church 

 that was simply built upon a beam in a corner. The young om-s were 

 too shy to take food from my hand, being past the age when birds open 

 their mouths to everything. I carried them to the gallery of the house 

 some twenty yards distant and the parents did the work of feeling, making 

 much noise and revealing much of their interesting and lovable character 

 in the process. In the end I gave them their liberty for they would not take 

 the various kinds of food I offered and I could not subject them to 

 suffragetic treatment with their delicate mouths. 



As I said in a former article, it is chiefly the god-bird that is seized 

 upon by the lazy-bird to be wet-nurse to its babes ; and it is no uncommon 

 sight to see a pair feeding their great foster-child which with pitiful cries 

 follows them about, long after it should have relieved them of the burthen 

 of its support. Yet, after all, it is only carrying out the traditions of its 

 family. Heredity is strong in the animal world. The god-bird is slightly 

 larger than our Jenny Wren. Its beak also is longer in proportion 

 and the bird is not so deeply-red. 'I he throat and breast, indeed, are 

 almost white ; light reddish brown at the sides. The feathers on tail and 

 wings are transversely barred with darker colour ; a feature common 

 among wrens ; and the feet are large. It has an alternate specific name 

 of furvus, that is, dark or gloomy : a libel on the character of this 

 singularly bright and sprightly creature. 



The Cotton Bird, 

 Flying along the trenches on the outskirts of the city, the Cotton- 

 bird is a conspicuous object. I presume that it derives it name from its 

 appearance, for seated on some bush beside its favourite trench, it might 

 be mistaken for some fully-blown cotton pod. It is a small bird hardly 

 five inches in extreme length, and being of an unobtrusive and prosaic 

 nature might easily be unobserved but for its colour. For the body of the 

 bird is pure white, and the tail, wings, back of the head and upper part 

 of the back, black. The lower wing coverts as also the rectrices are tipped 



