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coloured Halcyon (?) sanctus is common ; and I have shot a single 

 pair of the beautiful Alcyone pulchra, which I have only seen once. 

 My men, some of whom take great interest in my collection, men- 

 tion another, which I have not seen. According to their account, it 

 is a lovely bird, the under surface fine purple, &c. Of Artamus I 

 have several species, but have no means of determining them. 

 They usually frequent stumps and dead logs in open flats, in twos 

 and threes, and are very active. One species only, a dusky little 

 fellow, lives on the tops of the ranges. I have seen a number of 

 this species sitting round the top of a lofty Palm (Levistona), whose 

 head had been struck off by storm or whirlwind ; it was more than 

 80 feet high, and, swayed in the breeze and the circle of birds, with 

 their heads directed inwards and their tails turned outwards, had an 

 absurd effect. Of Shrikes I have two or three, including Grauculus 

 melanops. I do not know Grallina Australis, nor have I heard its 

 cry, so often alluded to by Leichardt, unless indeed a black and 

 white bird with whitish very long tarsi, and white, rather blunt and 

 soft beak, which builds a mud nest in the branches of trees near the 

 water, be it. It has a peculiar shrill cry as it rises from the water, 

 and is called the "Water Magpie " by our stockmen. 



Of Fly-catchers and Robins, so called, I have seven or eight species. 

 One robin has a slate-grey back, black head and wings, and chestnut 

 flanks, with a white stripe over the eye ; it lives in the mangroves, 

 and may be recognized at all times by its pretty little piping note. 

 I found it nesting in November and again in February and March ; 

 the nest is an open, shallow, slightly constructed one ; the eggs two 

 in number, dull greenish-grey, speckled with brown mostly at the 

 larger end. 



There are three or four "Wrens ; one a brilliant glossy black, with 

 scarlet back and rump ; this is the male bird, which does not attain 

 this plumage till the second moulting. The young birds are uni- 

 form dull wren colour. After the first moulting they have a darker 

 tint, and a few feathers between the shoulders tipped with red, and 

 perhaps a single black feather in the tail. At the second moulting 

 they acquire all their gloss, and may then be seen surrounded by a 

 group of newly fledged birds. The female is dull wren-brown, with 

 a lighter under surface. There is another beautiful Wren much 

 larger and longer in the body ; it has a beautiful purple top to the 

 head, with oval spot of glossy black in the centre, and black zone 

 outside it ; the body is greyish-brown ; the tail is long, of a blue 

 tint, and having a sort of water-mark, if I may so call it, on the. sur- 

 face, which gives various shades to the colour. There is also another 

 Wren of the same size and form and with a similar tail, but with a 

 plain grey head and a chestnut spot over the ear-coverts. This is a 

 female, the other a male ; of each I have only a single specimen. 

 All these build a dome-shaped nest of grass, in a low bush or tuft 

 of grass, and lay about February and March four white eggs, quite 

 translucent : the yolk shining through gives them a rose tint. I 

 have shot lately (May) a bird allied to Cinclorhamphus, but to what 

 genus it belongs I do not exactly know. Of two specimens one had 



