ORANGE-FRONTED CHAT. 
and lizard tracks were everywhere on the soft sand. There were many Tri- 
coloured and Orange-fronted Chats and Brown Song-Larks. The Orange- 
fronted Chat keeps more to the open salt hush country than does the 
Tricoloured, which is often met with along the watercourses, where the herbage 
is taller and grows more closely, and amongst the rank growth and scrub on the 
creek flats. This year the Tricoloured Chat was everywhere more numerous 
than its congener. The White-fronted Chat usually winters here when the 
other two species have gone north, but goes south before the spring months. . . 
A nest of E. aurifrons with three young birds was found. The feathers were 
just sprouting on the nestlings — colour, brown ; eyes not open ; gape orange 
with two black spots on either side of the tongue, like the young of E. tricolor .” 
Mr. Tom Carter’s notes read : “ The Orange-fronted Chat occurs rather 
sparingly in the coastal areas of the Gascoyne and North-west Cape districts. 
It seems particularly partial to the ‘ samphire ’ flats that occur in the vicinity 
of the coastal salt marshes. As with Epthianura tricolor, they were much 
more numerous in some years than in others. The nests are usually built 
from one to three feet from the ground in a low bush, such as a samphire or 
salt bush, and are built of fine grass and a few small twigs. The usual clutch 
of eggs is three, but occasionally four are laid.” 
Whitlock’s notes on the birds of the East Murchison, West Australia, 
read : “ Much commoner than the Tricoloured Chat. I even saw them in 
the streets of Wiluma. In the samphires around Lake Violet they were 
numerous, and I found a dozen nests without troubling to hunt for them. Some 
contained three eggs, others only two. The parent birds sat close, and would 
return to the nest whilst I was near. I more often flushed the male from the 
nest than the female. Perhaps the latter takes her turn at night. All the 
nests were low down, but seldom actually on the ground. This species was 
breeding near Milly Pool, but it was distinctly rare there. I was timing f\he 
period of incubation in one instance. I called at the nest just when I expected 
the young to be hatched and found it empty.” 
In the Emu, Vol. IX., p. 137, 1913, Ashby described a new species under 
the name Acanthiza ( Geobasileus ) flaviventris with the remarks : “ Acanthiza 
jlaviventris differs from A. chrysorrhoa in the typical white spots on the fore- 
head, face and ear-coverts being entirely absent ; in the general buff coloration, 
yellow abdomen and under tail-coverts. A specimen of A. chrysorrhoa in 
the Adelaide Museum, obtained in the McDonnell Ranges, while having the 
somewhat faded appearance usual to desert forms, does not materially differ 
from the normal type, and is considerably smaller than the species under 
review. The specimen now described was kindly given to me by Mr. Francis 
E. Starr, of Adelaide, who had received it in September last with other 
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