THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
a. cheerful and fearless little bird, which seems to prefer rather than shun the 
presence of man or other animate being. It has a simple but pleasing song, 
the cadences, though brief, being uttered in a very musical tone. When 
singing it usually perches on some point of vantage, and will continue its song 
despite the presence of an intruder within only a few feet of its perch. It 
inhabits the stony foothills of the ranges or the sparsely-clothed sand plains, 
showing a preference for those tracts either devoid of vegetation or where the 
scrub is of the most stunted character. I never saw it amongst timber, but 
it was not uncommon on the sandbanks on the eastern side of Lake Balicup, 
where there was a sparse growth of saltbush and samphires, and a more 
luxuriant crop of tussocky grasses. I did not see a single specimen west of 
the sand plain which terminates with the belt of timber at Solomon’s Well. 
It was present as far east as I penetrated, but did not seem to ascend very 
far up the slopes of the various peaks. This bird must be an early breeder, 
as young were on the wing when I arrived in the Ranges. Young in nestling- 
plumage hardly differ from adults.” 
Mr. Tom Carter writes : “ The Rock Field- Wren (C. montanellus ) is 
common on the sand plains to the east and south-east of Broome Hill, as far 
as the Stirling Ranges. It is very similar in its habits to the Rusty Red Field- 
Wren that occurs about the North-west Cape. Mr. A. W. Milligan, who first 
described this ‘ species,’ named it ‘ montanellus ’ because he only observed it 
on rocky or stony country (the Stirling Ranges), but my experience is that 
it is quite at home in all sand plain country of that district, especially where 
low scrub grows, under the shelter of which it often hides until almost trodden 
upon, and then rises, with a distinct £ whirr ’ of its wings, and dropping at 
no great distance from where disturbed, it runs at a great speed under the 
bushes, and is not again easily flushed. The song is a very sweet chirping- 
one, uttered from the top of a low' bush, and it resembles that of Cal. rubiginosus. 
On the approach of anyone the bird drops down into the bush and runs rapidly 
away along the ground. On August 28th, 1908, I found what I believe to 
be the first authenticated clutch of eggs a few miles east of Broome Hill on a 
sand plain. After some time spent in systematically tramping through some 
fairly thick scrubs, from five to ten feet in height, one of these Wrens w'as seen 
rapidly creeping away from me, on a fairly open patch of ground without 
much scrub growing on it. As I did not see from where the bird started, and 
being afraid of stepping upon a nest, I marked the place, and returned there 
after an hour’s interval. To my surprise the bird emerged from a piece of 
ground almost devoid of any vegetation, and rapidly twisted itself out of 
sight by running and crouching close to the ground, until it reached some 
close rushes. Getting down on my knees I saw the aperture of the nest, which 
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