OLIVACEOUS THICKHEAD 235 
which we later ascertained to be a tributary of the 
Anglesea River. In the bed of this, which had 
apparently been burnt out a few years before, was a 
dense growth of young ti-tree, the home of numberless 
Crescent and other Honeyeaters : and in places 
clumps of the original tall ti-tree, spared by the fire, 
stood among high sword-grass festooned with 
trailing masses of the beautiful coral fern. Passing 
one of these, we heard a strange bird-call of two 
notes, one high, the other much lower, quite musical 
and easily imitated by whistling. After a ten minutes' 
wait we saw the bird emerge from the verdure ; to 
our surprise, it was an Olivaceous Thickhead, the 
first either of us had ever seen in the district. 
No doubt the bird breeds in that locality, but it 
was then rather too early for a nest. I have seen 
nests at Fern Tree Gully, where the species is not 
uncommon ; it is a much larger and thicker structure 
than either of the other Thickheads', with strips of 
thin bark between the outer frame and the lining of 
rootlets. In this circumstance and the fact that 
the sexes are alike in colour this species stands nearer 
the Harmonious Thrushes than to the Rufous and 
White-throated Thickheads. 
Mr. Ross tells me he has often met with it at Lorne, 
and Mr. Mulder says it bred regularly in the ranges 
near Bambra in 1894. Of the call, he observes that 
the first note is on the fifth of the scale and that 
the second comes down to the octave. 
It is a seclusion-loving species, and non-migratory. 
