STRIATED TREERUNNER, 
a white bar across the primaries, chiefly on the inner-webs ; some of the innermost 
secondaries like the back ; rump and upper tail-coverts white ; tail black with white 
tips to the feathers ; sides of face similar to the sides of the neck; chin, throat, 
cheeks and fore-neck white ; breast, abdomen, sides of body, and under tail-coverts 
pale ash-grey with dark shaft-streaks to the feathers ; axillaries uniform-grey ; 
under wing-coverts blackish with white tips to the greater series ; under-surface of 
flight-quills blackish-brown with a white patch across the middle portion; lower 
aspect of tail similar to its upper-surface but somewhat paler. Eyes greyish-brown, 
feet very pale yellow, upper mandible black, lower lighter. Collected on the Barron 
River, near Cairns, North Queensland, on the 14th of October, 1912. 
Immature male. General colour of the upper-surface smoke-brown with pale tips to the 
feathers, including the top of the head, sides of the face, sides of neck, hind-neck, 
back, and scapulars, some of the feathers on the top of the head darker and inclining 
to blackish : lesser and median upper wing-coverts dark brown with whitish tips 
to the feathers ; bastard-wing and greater series blackish-brown more or less fringed 
with whitish at the tips ; primary-coverts and flight-quills blackish with a band of 
white across the primaries, chiefly on the inner-webs and somewhat paler at the 
tips ; rump and upper tail-coverts isabelline-white ; tail-feathers blackish broadly 
margined with white on the lateral ones ; lores and a line over the eye whitish; 
ear-coverts like the back ; chin and throat whitish with black centres to the feathers; 
breast isabelline with blackish shaft-lines to the feathers ; abdomen, sides of body, 
and under tail-coverts similar but without the dark shaft-lines ; axillaries and under 
wing-coverts dusky-brown, becoming whitish on the greater series ; under-surface 
of flight-quills dark brown with a patch of wiiite across the middle ; lower aspect 
of tail similar to its upper-surface. Feet, eyes and eyelids yellow. Bill yellow r 
with black tip. Collected at Normanton, North Queensland, on the 24th of 
November, 1913. 
Nest. “ Composed almost entirely of elongated pieces of bark and cobwebs, lined with 
the same material; it is a deep cup-shaped structure and the outside covered with 
those pieces of bark makes it look like part of the bough on which it is built. It 
has an internal depth of U inch, external 3 inches ; internal diameter 1| inch, 
external 2 inches.” (Le Souef.) 
Eggs. “ Clutch three. White, and lightly marked towards the smaller end with large, 
dark, slate-coloured markings, varying in intensity ; at the larger end they are 
confluent, but do not form a zone. 17-18 mm. by 13.” ( ib.) 
Breeding-season. August to December. 
This very distinct form of Treerunner also fell to the lot of Gould to describe, 
but he had no field-notes to record. 
A few years later Ramsay wrote “ Sittella striata. I mentioned this species 
as the young of S. leucoptera in P.Z.S., 1868, p. 387, where a mistake in the 
description occurs, the word upper-surface should have been under-surface, 
as the text will show. It is plentifully distributed over the whole Rockingham 
Bay district, and regarded by the aborigines there as sacred and as having had 
something to do with their first coming to that part of the country. This 
species seems to be more active than other Sittellce I have met with. They are 
usually found in small troops, and seem in a hurry, hopping quickly over the 
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