LITTLE GRASS-BIRD 269 
the ground varied from a few inches to about 3 feet. 
Many times birds rose from the pipe-reeds and 
typha bulrushes, but in neither of these did we find 
nests. 
The whistle is double- or treble-noted, musical, 
and easily imitated. There is also a harsh, chattering 
alarm note. In flight the long wedge-shaped tail 
is the bird's conspicuous distinguishing mark. I was 
informed by Mr. Purnell that these birds kept whistling 
about their camp on the Lake bank all through the 
preceding night. Except the Chat, it is the com- 
monest indigenous land-bird at the Lakes. 
On December ist, 191 2, I found several nests in 
thatch-grass in the Big Marsh, Barwon Heads Road. 
Two were side by side in the same tussock, one con- 
taining broken eggs and the other newly hatched 
young. 
At Point Henry the nest is built in the samphire. 
I once saw one in a box-thorn hedge near Lake Conne- 
warre ; another at the Gut was built among pipe- 
reeds in the water, the usual site near Melbourne and 
a most unusual one here. The immense majority 
are in the low lignum bushes. 
This is a description of a nest from the thatch-grass 
in the Big Marsh : Deep, cup-shaped, narrower at 
top, built externally of dry grass, including a few 
pieces of thatch-grass, very few seed-heads or roots. 
In the lining, consisting of about fifty feathers, were 
identifiable many feathers of the Spotted Water- 
crake, a few primaries and secondaries of small birds 
