142 TIMELIINJE. 



Sab. Rockingham Bay, Port Denjson, Wide Bay District, 

 Dawson River, Richmond and Clarence Rivers Districts, New 

 South Wales, Interior, Victoria and South Australia, Tasmania; 

 West and South-West Australia. (Sainsay.) 



Genus OEIGMA, Gould. 



^ ORIGMA RUBRICATA, Latham. 



Rock Warbler. 



Gould, Handhk. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 236, p. 385. ■32ZL. 8. 



"This bird may always be found in the neighbourhood of gullies 

 and ravines, especially where there is running water. It seems 

 to give preference to the rocky sides of steep gullies, where it may 

 be seen running over the rocks uttering its shrill cry, entering 

 into the crevices under the low shelving rocks, and reappearing 

 again many yards in advance. It is a very pleasing and lively 

 little bird and seems to love solitude. I have never seen it perch 

 upon a tree, although I have spent several evenings in watching 

 it. It runs with rapidity over the ground and over heaps of 

 rubbish left by the floods, where it seems to get a good deal of its 

 food. Sometimes it will remain for a minute on the point of a 

 rock, then as if it were falling over the edge, repeat its shrill cry, 

 and dash off again into some hole in the cliffs. The nest is of an 

 oblong form very large for the size of the bird, with an entrance 

 in the side about two inches wide. It is generally suspended 

 under some overhanging rock and is composed of fibrous roots 

 interwoven with the web of spiders, the birds having a preference 

 for those webs which contain the spiders' eggs, and that are of a 

 greenish colour. The mass does not assume the shape of a nest 

 until a few days before it is completed, when a hole for entrance 

 is made and the inside warmly lined with feathers ; however, even 

 when finished it is a very ragged structure and easily shaken to 

 pieces. The birds take a long time building their nests : one I 



