RED-BACKED WREN. 
which I discovered among the high grasses which there abound ; but as the 
period of my visit was their breeding season, I never observed more than a 
pair together, each pair being always stationed at some distance from the 
other, and in such parts of the gullies as were studded with small clumps 
of scrubby trees. This Superb Warbler has many actions in common with 
the M. cyaneus, and like that species carries its tail erect ; it also frequently 
perches on a stem of the most prominent grasses, where it displays its richly 
coloured back, and poms forth its simple song. I did not succeed in finding 
the nest, although I knew they were breeding around me ; it was probably 
placed among the grasses, but was so artfully concealed as to completely 
baffle my research. One might suppose the greater development of feather 
on the back of this species to have been given it as a defence against the 
damp and dense grasses of the ravines, among which it usually resides ; but 
from the circumstances of the female not possessing this character of plumage, 
and the rich garb being only seasonal in the male, this supposition falls to 
the ground. In their winter dress the sexes very nearly resemble each other ; 
but the males may always be distinguished by the black colouring of the bill 
and tail-feathers. The young male of the year has the tail-feathers brown, 
like the females ; and it is a curious fact that at this age these feathers are 
much longer than in the adult.” 
Mr. Chas. Barnard has written in 1908 : “ This bird was common about 
Quaringe (Coomooboolaroo) before the big drought of 1902, but for the next 
three years not a single specimen was seen. But now a few families are about.” 
Mr. J. W. Mellor writes : “ This pretty black and red Wren is to be 
found in the Queensland scrubs, also in those of New South Wales. I noted it 
only in small numbers in the Blackall Ranges about Mt. Cooroy ; it seemed 
to keep to the long grass about the sides of cuttings and ravines. I saw 
them on the Tweed River in New South Wales at Tungulbum, where they 
kept to the moist, grassy open flats, where wire and cutting grass was growing 
in profusion.” 
Macgillivray’s notes are here quoted : “ Mr. McLennan obtained his first 
nest of this species at Cairns on the 1st December, 1909, where he found 
the birds rather plentiful. He next met with him at Sedan on 20th February, 
1910, in a long Mitchell and cane-grass swamp. A male was secured in 
brown plumage with a crimson dorsal patch. These birds probably assume 
their full breeding dress in the spring, rear a brood, lose their livery, and then, 
with the revival of all vegetable and insect life which follows the summer 
rains, breed again in their ordinary brown dress. This male was found to 
have enlarged sexual organs. Irides blackish, bill dark brown, legs reddish- 
brown, The accompanying females were found to be tending a young bird 
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