GREY-BREASTED SHRIKE ROBIN. 
Australia, writing : “ In the forests of the beautiful leafed eucalypt and 
karri (also a eucalypt) in Western Australia, I was delighted to see this bird — 
the prototype of our familiar Yellow-breasted Shrike Robin of eastern parts. 
It takes its vernacular name from its grey breast. Altogether it has not so 
much yellow about its plumage as the eastern bird, which it in other respects 
resembles. The nidification is also similar. ... A second nest I discovered 
contained fledgelings, and was . . . not three feet from a roadway, where men 
and cattle passed daily. The birds do not appear to shun human society, 
for I had a nest pointed out to me which was placed in the fork of a fallen 
limb near a blacksmith’s forge. Eggs of this species in the collection of 
Mr. J. W. Mellor are from Mount Compass, South Australia.” 
According to Mr. Tom Carter, the Grey-breasted Shrike Robin “is a 
common species throughout the south-west, and one that attracts attention 
by its bright yellow under-body, its tameness, and peculiar habit of clinging 
‘ sideways ’ to the branch of a tree when watching anything. In the Emu, 
Vol. II., p. 104, I recorded having shot near the N.W. Cape, Eebruary 23rd, 
1902 (and smashed to pieces, with 16° gun, at a few yards’ range) a bird 
that I could not identify, and whose remains I sent to Mr. A. J. North, 
Sydney, who replied it was impossible to say with any certainty what it 
was, but it might be Grey-breasted Robin. This conclusion was most probably 
formed from the number of bright yellow small feathers among the remains ; 
but as I shot, in June of the same year, within a few yards of the same place 
as the previously mentioned bird, a fine specimen of Pachycephala melanura, 
it is most likely that the mangled bird with yellow feathers was an immature 
bird of the last named species, especially as I do not think there is any record 
of Pachy. gularis within some hundred miles of the N.W. Cape. About 
Broome Hill the breeding-season is mostly in September. The nests are formed 
in a very ingenious way, of strips of dry bark and usually built about five or 
six feet from the ground in a small tree. Oct. 28th, 1906. Saw recently 
fledged young. Jan. 1st, 1907. Half -grown young still in nest. Sept. 12th, 
1907. Observed nesting. Sept. 21st-29th, 1908. Nests each with two eggs 
five feet from ground in small dead Jam tree and Casuarina tree. Common 
about Albany, Denmark, down to coast.” 
There is little on record, as this is a common bird where it occurs, 
and is apparently so similar in actions and coloration as to be neglected. 
As, however, there lives with it another species which until recently has been 
classed as congeneric and which certainly shows a superficial likeness to it, a 
comparison of the economy of the two species would be very valuable. The 
very restricted range of both, and the absence of the genera from Tasmania, 
suggests a double invasion of the same form at different times, both of which 
VOL. VIII. 
297 
