EASTERN GRASS-WREN. 
almost uniform ; flight-quills hair-brown, rather darker on the innermost secondaries, 
with pale shafts, and cinnamon-rufous on the basal portion of the inner webs ; 
tail similar but slightly darker, more uniform, and having obsolete cross-bars ; 
rictal bristles black ; feathers in front of the eye whitish at the base with black 
hair-like tips like those of the chin ; throat, fore-neck and breast pale cinnamon 
with whitish shaft-streaks ; abdomen whitish fawn colour ; sides of body, thighs 
and under tail-coverts dull cinnamon ; axillaries, under wing-coverts and inner 
margins of flight-quills below bright cinnamon-rufous, remainder of the quill-lining 
pale hair-brown ; lower aspect of tail similar to its upper-surface, but paler. Total 
length 165 mm. ; culmen 11, wing 65, tail 77, tarsus 23. Collected in New South 
Wales [Namoi River ?] in November, 1886, and is the type of D. inexpectatus. 
Immature female. General colour of the upper-surface blackish-brown with white shaft- 
lines to the feathers on the top of the head, where some of the feathers still retain 
traces of down on the tips, sides of face, sides of neck, hind-neck, and mantle ; 
upper wing-coverts, flight- quills, and tail-feathers margined with rufous-brown ; 
rictal bristles black with whitish bases ; throat pale smoke-brown, becoming darker 
on the breast and abdomen, and rufous-brown on the sides of the body, flanks, 
thighs, and under tail-coverts ; under-surface of flight-quills paler than above ; 
lower aspect of tail also paler than its upper-surface. Collected on Myall Creek, 
Cariewerels Station, Gawler Ranges, South Australia, on the 16th of September, 
1912. 
Nest and Eggs not described. 
Under the title “ Amytis textilis ” Gould figured a Grass- Wren and wrote : 
“ The bird figured in the 4 Voyage de l’Uranie 5 doubtless represents the 
present species, while that figured by Lesson in the Atlas to his 4 Traite 
d’Ornitliologie,’ and which seems to have been the subject from which he 
took his generic characters and description, as clearly belongs to A. striatus. 
The only place in which I observed the Textile-Wren was the plains bordering 
the Lower Namoi ; and that its range extends far to the northward and 
westward is tolerably certain. In the various positions it assumes, in the 
elevated carriage of its tail, and in its whole economy, it bears a close resem- 
blance to the Maluri ; like them also it wanders about in small troops of \four 
or six in number, always keeping within a short distance, and returning 
towards the close of the day to its accustomed haunts. On the Lower Namoi, 
where it is very abundant, it is found in all those parts of the plains that are 
studded with scrubs and clumps of a low shrub-like tree, resembling the 
Barilla of the coast, through and among which it creeps with astonishing 
rapidity ; indeed its mode of progression on the ground is such as no de- 
scription can convey an accurate conception of, and must be seen to be 
understood ; I cannot perhaps compare it with anything, unless with the 
motion of an Xndian-rubber ball when thrown forcibly along the ground. 
While stealing from bush to bush, with this rapid movement, its head low and 
tail perfectly erect, it presents an exceedingly droll appearance. Like many 
others of its family, it seldom employs its power of flight.” 
187 
