FLAME-BREASTED ROBIN. 
Eggs. Clutch, three to four. Ground-colour pale greenish-white, spotted and blotched 
more at the larger end with umber and underlying markings of lavender. 18 to 
20 mm. by 14 to 15. 
Breeding-season. September to December or January. 
It may be recorded that the early colonists confused all the Red-breasted 
44 Petroicce ” as Watling figured this bird, No. 189, and gave a note : 44 Half 
the natural size. Native name Karreet. This domestic little bird frequents 
fields and gardens, as does the Robin in England, and it is called the Robin 
of New South Wales and Norfolk Island, where it is still more numerous than 
in New South Wales. This is a male ; the female’s breast is of a much paler 
colour, and the back, head, and tail, instead of being nearly black, is a brown.” 
Gould wrote : 44 It is far less arboreal than the Petroica multicolor, giving a 
decided preference to open wastes and cleared lands rather than to the woods ; 
in many of its actions it much resembles the Wheatears and other true saxi- 
coline birds, often selecting a large stone, clod of earth or other substance, on 
which to perch and show off its flame-coloured breast to the greatest advantage. 
It is a very familiar species, seeking rather than shunning the presence of man, 
and readily taking up its abode in his gardens, orchards, and other cultivated 
grounds ; I have even taken its nest from a shelving bank in the streets of 
Hobart Town. It has a pretty, cheerful song, uttered somewhat low and 
inwardly ; the male generally sings over or near the female while she is sitting 
upon her eggs.” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby has written me : 44 While the Scarlet-breasted Robin is 
essentially a scrub or forest-loving Robin, this species finds its food in the 
open. It is specially fond of turned-up ground, and in Victoria I have often 
seen the bright breasts of fully half a dozen cock birds feeding along the same 
furrow. In the neighbourhood of Blackwood, South Australia, this bird does 
not appear until the late autumn when the ground is being ploughed ; these 
birds may then be looked for, though they are never numerous, but at that 
season they are fairly widely distributed in suitable localities. Both in Victoria 
and in Tasmania I have found them numerous. In the latter State I shot a 
bird in grey plumage and found it was a breeding male, so it is therefore evident 
that all cocks do not attain the scarlet breast the first season.” 
Colonel Legge wrote : 44 This is the most saxicoline of the Robins in 
Tasmania, reminding one forcibly of the Wheatear in England, and even the 
Stonechat. In its quick little flights from stone to stone in the open fields, 
then flitting off to the post of a fence and quickly alighting therefrom on the 
ground, where it will snap up an insect or fly and devour it on a neighbouring 
clod, it shows the habits of a true Chat.” 
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