DRYMODES SUPERCILIARIS, Gould. 
Eastern Scrub Robin. 
Dri/modes super ciliaris, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., July 23, 1850. — Jard. Cont. Orn. 1850. 
Trofcdroo, Aborigines of Cape York. 
Perhaps one of the most interesting of the smaller birds discovered by me in the brushes of South Au- 
stralia, was a species of this form to which I gave the name of Dry/nodes brunneopygia, and which I found 
to be a very recluse bird, inhabiting the densest scrub, retreating from danger and shrouding itself from 
observation by hopping beneath the thick herbage. I did not fail to remark, also, that its habits were 
very similar to those of the Saxicoline birds : the new species, represented on the accompanying Plate, is an 
inhabitant of the north-east coast of Australia ; and it will be seen by the following notes by Mr. Mac- 
Gillivray, that the two birds, as might be supposed, accord as nearly in their habits as they are allied in 
structure. 
“While traversing on the 17th of November, 1849, a thin open scrub of small saplings growing in a 
stony ground thickly covered with dead leaves, about five or six miles inland from Cape York, I observed a 
nest placed on the ground at the foot of a small tree ; its internal diameter was four inches and a half ; it 
was outwardly composed of small sticks with finer ones inside, and lined with grass-like fibres, and was 
moreover surrounded with dead leaves heaped up to a level with its upper surface ; it contained two eggs 
an inch long by seven-tenths of an inch broad, of a regular oval shape, and of a very light stone-grey thickly 
covered with small umber blotches, which increased in size and were more thickly placed at the larger end : 
they were placed side by side, with the large end of one opposite the small end of the other. After watching- 
near the nest for some time, one of the owners appeared, and was procured; but putrefaction having com- 
menced before my return to the ship, I could not ascertain the sex with certainty: it approached me within 
three or four yards, hopping with sudden jerks over the leaves, and moving by fits and starts like the Robin 
of Europe ; it uttered no cry or note during the time I was watching its motions ; two others were after- 
wards procured in the same kind of open scrub, and the birds being probably in the immediate neighbour- 
hood of their nest, hopped up quite close to the observer.” 
The sexes assimilate in colour, but the female is somewhat smaller than the male. 
Lores white ; immediately above and below the eye a black mark forming a conspicuous moustache ; 
crown of the head and upper surface reddish brown, passing into chestnut-red on the rump and six middle 
tail-feathers ; remainder of the tail-feathers black, tipped with white ; wings black, with the base of the 
primaries and the tips of the coverts white, forming two hands across the wing ; throat and centre of the 
abdomen fawn-white ; chest and flanks washed with tawny; irides umber-brown ; legs and feet flesh-colour. 
The Plate represents the two sexes of the natural size. 
