CHESTNUT-BACKED GROUND-BIRD. 
shy and wary, a circumstance which cannot be attributed to any dread of 
man as an enemy, since it inhabits parts scarcely ever visited either by the 
natives or Europeans. Eew persons, I may safely say, had ever discharged 
a gun in that rich arboretum, the Belts of the Murray, before the period 
of my being there ; still the bird was so difficult of approach that it required 
the utmost exertion to procure specimens. They were generally observed in 
small troops of four or six in number, running through the scrub one after 
another in a line, and resorting to a short low flight, when crossing the 
small intervening plains. It runs over the surface of the ground with even 
greater facility than C. punctatum. In its mode of flight and nidification it 
assimilates so closely to the Spotted Ground-Thrush as to render a separate 
description superfluous. The stomach is extremely muscular, and the food 
consists of seeds and the smaller kind of Coleoptera.” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby also states : “I have found this bird numerous in the 
Mallee near Mannum and also in the great stretch of Mallee to the east of the 
River Murray especially round Karunda. Its habits are similar to those of 
the preceding (Spotted Ground-Bird). I also met with the West Australian 
form in the open Salmon gum country near Broome Hill, and at Callion, and 
its habits are quite similar.” 
Mr. F. E. Howe has sent me the following note : “ This beautiful form is very 
plentiful all through the Mallee scrubs. I first made its acquaintance at Pine 
Plains, 1907, in company with Messrs. Mattingley, Ross and McLennan, when 
a few pairs were flushed. During September 1908 I flushed a female from a 
nest, containing an egg, which she subsequently deserted. Mr. Ross and I 
again visited Kow Plain during October 1909, and here we found them very 
plentiful. The call-note is a soft and wheezing one, and is exactly like that of 
G. punctatum. We flushed many from their nests, which contained a pair 
of young each. They rise quickly and with rather a loud flapping or whirring 
of the wings, and have a jerky and undulating flight. They never appeared 
to fly more than about fifty or sixty yards, and after alighting ran very quickly 
with the head low down, but when feeding or walking quietly they have the 
same habit as the Pigeons of distending the neck. Young that were just 
hatched and up to a few days old were covered with long dark slate-coloured 
down, the gape being white and the mouth orange ; others about ten days old 
were seen, and the gape and mouth were still the same ; the eyebrow was white 
and a white line extended from the gape across the cheeks ; the wings, brownish 
in colour, were speckled with white and the breast was also mottled ; abdomen 
white ; eyes black ; bill and feet of a light fleshy colour. We caught a pair 
that had just left the nest, and in them the gape had assumed a darkish colour. 
These were made to utter cries, which soon brought the parents about, when 
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