Richmond River. Like the M. superba it is of a shy disposition ; when alarmed and running away it carries 
the tail erect, and not dropping downward like that species. I spent ten days in the midst of the cedar 
brushes in the hope of learning something of its nidification, but did not succeed in finding any nest with 
eggs ; I found, however, one large domed nest made of sticks and placed in the spur of a large fig-tree, 
which the natives assured me was that of the Colwin, their name for this bird ; it resembled that of Ortho- 
nyx, except that the inside was not lined with moss, but with the litter from a large mass of parasitical 
plants that had fallen to the ground. The natives agree in asserting that the eggs are only laid in the 
cold weather, by which I apprehend they mean in the spring, as I shot a young bird about four months 
old, on the 24th of November, which had the whole of the body still covered with a brown and greyish 
down. I have seen this species take some extraordinary jumps of not less than ten feet from the ground 
on to some convenient branch, whence it continues to ascend in successive jumps, until it has attained a 
sufficient elevation to enable it to take flight into the gulley below.” 
The male has the crown of the head and back of the neck sooty black, with a tinge of chestnut on the 
forehead and some of the crest-feathers ; all the upper surface, particularly the upper tail-coverts, rich 
rusty chestnut ; primaries blackish brown, tinged with rufous on their external edges ; throat rusty red, 
passing into a paler tint of the same colour on the breast ; abdomen grey, washed with sandy buff ; thighs 
grey, slightly washed with buff; under tail-coverts bright rufous; upper surface of the tail-feathers slaty 
black, their under surface silvery grey ; the outer lyre-shaped feather on each side much shorter than the 
corresponding feathers in Menura superba, and entirely destitute of the bars so conspicuous in that species ; 
the two centre feathers narrow, prolonged, crossing each other at the base, curving outward at the tip, and 
webbed only on their external side. 
The female is similar in colour to the male ; but distinguishable by the feathers of the tail being much 
less filamentous in their structure, and by the two middle feathers being shorter, broader and straighter, 
than in the opposite sex, and broadly webbed on both sides of the shaft. 
The Plate represents the two sexes, about half the natural size. 
