SPINE-TAILED LOG-RUNNER. 
lining dusky-brown ; lower aspect of tail blackish-brown. Collected on Richmond 
River, northern New South Wales, in October 1905. 
Nest. Pome-shaped with side entrance. Composed of sticks, etc., and lined with moss. 
Outside measurements 10-15 inches. 
Eggs. — Clutch, two, white. 27-28 mm. by 20. 
Breeding-season. April to July. 
There has been confusion with regard to the specific name of the present 
species, and an extraordinary coincidence has necessitated the reversion to 
probably the best known, but latterly rejected, name. Thus in 1820 Temminck 
described a genus Orthonyx , and gave a good description but did not give a 
specific name at that time. Seven years later he published two beautiful 
coloured figures, and named the species Orthonyx spinicaudus. In the mean- 
while Vigors and Horsfield, dealing with the birds in the Linnean Society’s 
Collection, accepted Temminck’s genus name and added to it, as the species 
name, temminckii, but Temminck’s specific name became the commonly used 
one. 
The determination by me of the exact dates of publication of the names 
assigned to Australian birds necessitated the rejection of this name, as it was 
proved that Stephens’s name, given in the same way, maculatus, was published 
some months earlier than Vigors and Horsfield’s name, and consequently the 
valid name was Orthonyx maculatus. I now find that prior, by years, to any 
of these names is one given by Ranzani in 1822, and peculiarly enough this is 
the common name, temminckii , as Ranzani did exactly the same as Vigors and 
Horsfield, proposed the name of the describer of the genus as the species name. 
No note of its habits was given by any of these ornithologists, so that 
Gould’s notes are the earliest and they are rather meagre. 
“ The Spine-tailed Orthonyx is very local in its habitat, being entirely 
confined, so far as I have been enabled to ascertain, to the brushes which skirt 
the southern and eastern coasts of Australia, such as those at Illawarra, and 
in the neighbourhood of the rivers Manning, Clarence, and Macleay. It is 
usually found in the most retired situations, running over the prostrate logs 
of trees, large moss-covered stones, etc. I ascertained by an examination 
of the stomach that the food consists of insects, principally of the order 
Coleoptera, and that the white throat distinguishes the male and the rufous 
throat the female. M. Jules Verreaux, who has written ( Revue Zoologique , 
July 1847) a highly interesting account of the bird, states that it is strictly 
terrestrial, and scratches among the detritus and fallen leaves for its food, 
throwing back the earth like the Gallinacece. It never climbs, as was 
formerly supposed, but runs over fallen trunks of trees ; is rather a solitary 
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