GRASS BIRD. 
lower aspect of tail hair-brown. Total length 120 mm. ; culmen 8, wing 56, tail 60, 
tarsus 21. Figured. Collected at Westemport, Victoria, on the 10th March, 1909, 
and is the type of Megalurus gramineus wilsoni. The sexes are alike. 
Adult male. General colour of the upper-surface black with ochreous-brown margins to 
the feathers including the top of the head, upper-back, wings and tail ; flight- 
quills hair-brown, becoming darker and almost black on the innermost secondaries 
where the margins of which are much paler and inclining to white ; lower-back 
and upper tail-coverts rust-brown with blackish centres to the feathers ; lores 
and a line above the eye whitish ; a dark spot in front of the eye ; sides of face 
ochreous-brown with more or less white intermixed ; throat and breast white 
with blackish centres to the feathers ; abdomen whitish ; sides of the body ochreous 
with dark shaft-lines to the feathers like the thighs and under tail-coverts ; under 
wing-coverts and inner edges of quills below buffy-white, remainder of quill-lining 
hair-brown ; lower aspect of tail ochreous-brown. Bill purple-flesh, feet and 
legs brownish-purple, eyes reddish-hazel. Total length 136 mm. ; culmen 10, 
wing 56, tail 57, tarsus 22. Figured. Collected at Lake Muir, South-west Australia 
on the 26th November, 1911, and is the type of Megalurus gramineus thomasi. 
The sexes are alike. 
Nest. Oval with side entrance. Situated in the rushes. Composed of rushes woven 
round and the outside entirely covered with the silky tops of them. Lined with 
feathers which stick out of the opening. Outside measurements 6 inches by 4. 
Opening about 1| inches wide. 
Eggs. Clutch four. Ground-colour pinkish, covered with spots of purplish-red, some- 
times evenly all over, sometimes forming a zone on the larger end. 19-20 mm. 
by 14-15. 
Breeding-season. August to January. 
Gould described this as a species of Sphenoeacus, a genus proposed for African 
birds, but which he was using for Indian forms. His notes read : “ Although 
the present species is very generally dispersed over the whole of the southern 
and western portions of Australia and Tasmania, in all situations suitable 
to its habits, it is as little known to the colonists as if it were not in existence, 
which is readily accounted for by its recluse nature and the localities it 
frequents, the thick beds of grasses, rushes, and other kinds of herbage growing- 
in low, damp, and wet places on the mainland, and on such islands as those 
of Green and Actseon, in D’Entrecasteaux’s Channel, being its favourite places 
of resort. It is a very shy species, and will almost allow itself to be trodden 
upon before it will quit the place of its concealment ; in the open grassy beds 
of the flats it is more easily driven from its retreat, but even then it merely 
flies a few yards, and pitches again among the herbage. Its song consists of 
four or five plaintively-uttered notes, repeated five or six times in succession.” 
Mr. Frank Littler has written me : “In Tasmania it is extremely shy, 
always keeping to the reeds and long rank grass with which its favourite haunts 
abound. It is in the habit of lying very close so that one may almost walk 
on it before it moves ; then only a short distance is traversed before it again 
YOL. IX. 
377 
