134 
AN AUSTRALIAN BIRD BOOK. 
it flies little, preferring to Iceep near tlie dark scrubs, especially 
the tea-tree scrub along the coast. 
The Song-Thrush and Blackbird have been successfully intro- 
duced, and they are common in suburban gardens. Their de- 
lightful song makes richer the lives of busy city dwellers, though 
their attentions to soft fruits are not always appreciated. For 
f sweetness and fulness of notes, however, these introduced birds 
cannot compare with our Harmonious Shrike-Thrush (315), de- 
servedly named harmonica by Latham, a British ornithologist. 
The call of the latter bird, however, is not so continuous as that of 
the introduced birds. 
The four Australian birds known as Chats take the next sub- 
family to themselves. The common Chat is known as a "Tang,*' 
''Nun," and "Tin-tac." While the White-fronted Chat is very 
common in the South, the beautiful Crimson-breasted Chat, with 
its crimson cap and pure white throat, and the Orange-fronted 
Chat, are found mostly in the dry interior, where they are known 
as Salt-bush Canaries. A good common name is urgently re- 
quired for this Australian sub-family of birds. North calls them 
Nuns; but that name is preoccupied, and is suitable only 
for one of them. I was much interested last week (January, 
1911) to see a male White-fronted Chat feeding a fully-fledged 
young Bronze Cuckoo. Two female Sparrows were also in at- 
tendance, one of which fed the Cuckoo three times while I was 
observing it. A female Bronze Cuckoo sat for some time by the 
young one, but did not interfere, or offer to feed it. The Chat 
returned the fifth time for the purpose of feeding the young 
Cuckoo, when the passing of a motor-car broke up the party. 
The young Cuckoo flew across the road and some distance on to 
a bush, where it resumed its constant wheezing whine. It is 
unusual to find birds so far apart as a Finch, like the Sparrow and 
a member of the Thrush family, like the Chat, feeding the one 
young Cuckoo. 
The Warbler family, Sylviidae, is a large one, found all through 
the Eastern Hemisphere. One migratory species crosses Behring 
Strait each year to summer in Alaska. 
As no less than 79 Australian small birds have been grouped 
in this family, it is of considerable importance to our bird lovers. 
At the head of the family, we have an exact representative of the 
Reed-Warbler of Europe in the delightful plain-brown songster 
which charms all who frequent river sides. Its song is **louder 
and more melodious than that of any of its European relations 
except" the Reed-Warbler. It is a welcome spring visitor, and 
can be heard on any spring or summer day in the Botanic Gar- 
dens, or in any reed bed by stream or lake. 
The next bird is the Australian representative of the Fantail- 
Warblers {Cisticola). These birds are related to the Tailor-Bird. 
Much has been written of the Tailor-Bird of India which so 
cleverly sews leaves together to enclose its nest, but few know 
we Lave a bird that does similar work when building its nest. 
