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THE BIRDS OE AUSTRALIA. 
shot outwards and upwards ; the nest was filled with three feathered young, 
mottled grey and brown. The female dropped off the nest as I approached,' 
fluttering along the ground in front of me as if disabled, sometimes falling 
over to one side and holding up a wing outspread and marked with a whitish 
bar. When she had drawn me a sufficient distance from the nest she would 
recover and fly into the scrub until I again approached the nest, when she 
would reappear and repeat her tactics.” 
Mr. T. P. Austin relates of the form E. a. austini : “Fairly numerous 
in favourable situations, such as dry scrubby country on the top of the highest 
rocky ranges, never have I met with it in this district in the open forests or 
on the lower flats. Usually met with in pairs or single birds, but at times I 
have come across as many as a dozen associating together. Its food is mostly 
gathered upon the ground in much the same manner as other Robins. It has 
a habit of often settling on the sides of trunks of trees, watching for some insect 
from the ground. It has several call-notes, one of which is used with the power 
of ventriloquism. For some years I was very puzzled to know what bird this 
note came from. I often heard it and tried to follow it up, till one day I saw 
a bird uttering it within a few feet of me, and I have often seen them at it 
since. In nesting they are not particular as to height, as I have seen their 
nests from three to fifty feet from the ground, but more often they are placed 
rather low down. I have examined nests containing eggs from the last week 
in August till the last week in November.” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby’s notes state : “ These birds were very common in 
the Blackall Range in Queensland. Just before and after sunset at the end 
of September, quite a number of these beautiful birds used to come round 
the bush house I was staying at, appearing to be specially fond of sitting 
on a low post and rail fence close to the house and flying from this post of 
vantage on to the ground to pick up unwary insects. As they were hardly 
visible round the house in the daytime, they must have appeared then 
because it was their feeding time or because certain insects that frequented 
the garden only came forth at dusk.” 
Mr. E. J. Christian wrote me: “This quiet, trustful little bird is very 
plentiful on the east side of Port Phillip Bay, in the thick fringe of ti-tree which 
borders that side. Without a doubt I think he is the most trustful of all the 
birds, and many a pleasant day have I spent among them. They inhabit the 
thickest parts of the ti-tree, and do splendid work therein. They obtain their 
food chiefly off the narrow stems, and fly from stem to stem and cling on in 
just the ‘ Treecreeper ’ style, but they do not creep up the tree at all. I found 
that they did not nest in the densest parts of the scrub, but generally near 
the edge of a small clear space, such as often occur in the ti-tree scrub. When 
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