SCARLET-BREASTED ROBIN 223 
SCARLET-BREASTED ROBIN 
Petroica multicolor frontalis 
There could be no better place to study this beautiful 
little red-breast than the Eastern Park, where it 
has in the last decade become so well established 
that a dozen pairs breed there every year. 
The male bird is unmistakable, and it is only 
necessary to point out that his throat is black, and so 
distinguishes him easily from the Flame Robin, which 
has the throat red as well as the breast. The females 
of the two are more difficult to tell, especially when 
seen apart ; but at all seasons of the year the drab- 
coloured little mate of the Scarlet Robin has just a 
flush of red on her grey breast. In the spring it looks 
quite bright, particularly when the little lady peers 
at you out of her snug nest, firm-set in an upright fork. 
These Robins are quiet birds, loving the ground 
and the lower boughs of trees, easy of approach if 
one is careful. They are practically non-migratory, 
unless it be that they make little winter expeditions 
to a distance of a mile or two out on to the plains 
and along the roadsides from their breeding-haunts. 
The song is heard at its best in August ; it is a very 
subdued yet cheerful little dactylic trill, repeated 
two or three times. I think the male alone sings. 
Nesting starts in the Park in July, at the You Yangs 
in August, and is later in the southern forest, where 
I have noted fresh eggs early in November, though 
