THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Adult female. Crown of head and fore-head black with grey fringes to the feathers; nape 
and hind-neck black ; lores, a broad line over the eye and eye-ring dark chestnut; 
sides of neck and sides of hinder face lead-grey ; back, scapulars, and lesser upper 
wing-coverts dark smoke-brown like the inner median and inner major-coverts; 
bastard-wing and first primary-quill pale brown margined with white; outer 
median and outer greater coverts black; primary-coverts and base of primary- 
quills black becoming paler towards the tips of the latter ; secondary-quills blackish 
tipped with dusky-grey, with a band of pale buff across both series of flight-quills; 
rump, upper tail-coverts, and middle tail-feathers slate-grey, the lateral feathers 
grey at the base, followed by a wide subterminal black band, and pale grey tips 
to the feathers ; chin and throat whitish slightly tinged with chestnut; fore-neck 
and upper breast chestnut with broad white shaft-fines ; lower breast, abdomen, 
and sides of body drab-brown broadly streaked with white and more narrowly 
with black becoming paler towards the vent; thighs dusky; under tail-coverts 
buffy-white barred with black ; axillaries and under wing-coverts spotted with pale 
brown ; under-surface of flight-quills pale brown with a patch of bufiy-white; 
lower aspect of tail blackish, broadly tipped with lead-grey. Bill and feet black. 
Total length 143 mm. ; culmen 14, wing 84, tail 64, tarsus 23. Figured. Collected 
at Olinda, Victoria, on the 7th of June, 1909. 
Immature birds of both sexes “ resemble the adults, but are destitute of the rusty-red 
lores, superciliary stripe and orbital region, these parts being dusky greyish-brown; 
the chin and centre of the upper-throat are dull buffy-white, remainder of the 
under-surface uniform light earth-brown, except the centre of the abdomen, which 
is buffy-white ; under tail-coverts buff with imperfect V-shaped blackish-brown 
cross-bars.” (North.) 
Eggs. Two to three eggs form the clutch, and seldom four. A clutch of two eggs taken 
at Selby, Dandenong Ranges, Victoria, on the 13th of September, 1914, is of a 
pinkish-white ground-colour, well marked nearly all over with small spots and 
specks of reddish-browm, and dull purplish. Ovals in shape ; surface of shell smooth 
and rather glossy. 24 mm. by 17. 
Nest. A compact mass of bark, well fined with fur, and placed in a hollow limb or spout 
of a tree. Height of nest varies from 20 to 40 feet or more from the ground. 
Breeding months are August to January. 
Gould named this distinct Treecreeper, and recently confusion has crept 
in through the bad policy of lumping, suggested in my early writings, as to 
species, though splitting as to subspecies. While such a procedure may be 
useful, though I now doubt it, with regard to Palaearctic forms, it is not so 
beneficial to the Austral student. The complex climatic conditions known 
throughout Australia are quite alien to the Palaearctic student of avian forms, 
and more or less incomprehensible. 
Gould stated: “ I obtained this interesting species while encamped on 
the low grassy hills under the Liverpool range; but whether it is generally 
distributed over the colony, or merely confined to districts of a similar 
character to those in which I found it, I had no opportunity of ascertaining. 
So far as I could observe, its habits and manners bore a striking resemblance 
to those of the Climacteris leucophcea. One singular feature connected with 
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