THE BIRDS OF THE COBBORA DISTRICT. 



127 



Nest ol the Red-rumpcd lit [Acanthiza pyrrhopygia) in topmost branch of a small Iron bark 



sapling, 



Acanthiza chrysorrhoa (Yellow-rumpcel Tit). — This well-known little bird is rather rare in this 

 district, but there are always a few of them about my garden, where they breed every year, laying 

 from three to four eggs for a sitting. Their nest is a favourite one for the Bronze Cuckoo to place 

 its egg in. They never enter into the thickly timbered country in these parts, keeping to the open 

 forests where there is little undergrowth. 



Acanthiza reguloides (Buff-rumped Tit). — A very common species in just the very class of 

 country which the Yellow -rumped Tit avoids. They are usually met with in small flocks feeding 

 upon the ground between the scrubby bushes. They place their nests in a great variety of situations, 

 and lay either three or four eggs for a sitting. All I have taken were found during the month of 

 October. 



Maim us cyanochlamys (Silvery Blue Wren). — This is the only Malurus found in this district, 

 and during the first ten years of my residence here I did not see a single bird, the first which came 

 under my notice being on January 13th, 1910. They had a nest containing three eggs in a black 

 thistle growing on the edge of a lagoon, only a few yards outside my vvoolshed. Since then they have 

 been increasing, and now* there are a fair number of them on the estate , but I have never found them 

 them far away from water. One family have been breeding in my garden for the last five years, and 

 at the present lime have a nest in a clump of sweet peas only a few steps off my verandah, and I can 

 see the nest while writing these notes. The female is sitting upon three eggs. 



Artamus leucogasler (White-rum ped Wood Swallow). — They do not put in appearance every 

 year but occasionally a few pairs arrive in the spring, always taking up their abode in the large red 

 Euros growing on the banks of the river, where they breed. Their nests are placed sometimes in a 

 partly rotten hollow branch, or where a branch has been broken off, and very often in an old Grallina's 



