BANDED FINCH. 
Adult female. Fore-head, a line over each eye bordering the oar-coverts and encircling 
the tliroat, black; top of the head ash-brown, indistinctly barred with blackish- 
brown ; back of the neck paler; mantle brownish-ash, regularly barred with 
brownish-white; a bar of black feathers across the lower back; rump white; 
upper tail-coverts black; tail uniform black; wing-coverts and innermost 
secondaries black covered witli spots and markings of wliite; four outer primaries 
uniform blackish-brown, innermost primaries and outermost secondaries blackish- 
brown, spotted with white on the margin of the outer web ; throat wlxite. separated 
from the greyish-white chest by a black collar; belly and sides of the body white 
tinged with fawn-colour, wliich is again separated front the chest by another black 
band ; under tail-coverts black ; under-surface of wings greyish-ash. Total length 
96 mm.; culmen 9, wing 51, tail 38, tarsus U. Collected at Bourke, Western 
New South Wales, in April, 1893, and is the type of Munia bichenovii pallescens 
(middle figure). 
Nestlirig. Head, heck, mantle and lower back ashy-olive, very indistinctly barred with 
grey ; rump and upper tail-coverts black ; primaries and outer secondaries brownish- 
black, barred on the outer web with wliite; innermost secondaries broadly barred 
across both webs with dusky-white; cheeks and sides of the face wliite, a patch 
of black feathers beliind the ear ; tliroat wliite ; a collar round the fore-neck formed 
by the black-edged feathers of the lower tliroat; • chest, sides and flanks greyish- 
wliite; imddle of the abdomen wliiiish; under tail-coverts black; tail above 
and below blackish; under-surface of wing ash-grey, margined on the inner web 
with whitish. Collected at Derby, North-west Australia, on the 4th of July, 1901, 
Sieganopleura bichenovii. 
Eggs. Four to five eggs form the clutch. A clutch of five eggs taken near Townsville, 
North Queensland, on the 11th of February, 1900, is of a pure white. Ovals in 
shape. Surface of shell fine and smooth, but devoid of gloss. 16 by 10 mm. 
Nest. The usual bottle-shaped structure, composed of dried grasses, and lined with 
feathers and other soft material. Generally built in a small bush or tall grass 
growth. 
Breeding-months. July to December. Some years the seasons are earlier and later, 
according to the rains. 
Siegar^pleura annulosa. 
Eggs. Four to six eggs usually form the clutch. A clutch of five eggs taken on Grooto 
Eylanat, Norttiern Territory, on the 15th of June, 1921, is wWte, possessing the 
very faintest trace of a pale bluish tinge. Sometimes the eggs of this species 
possess many very minute specks of blackish-brown at the larger end. Swollen 
ovals in shape. Surface of shell smooth, but devoid of gloss. 16 by 10 mm. 
Nest. The usual bottle-shaped structure, composed of dried grasses, and lined with finer 
mateiial. 
Bteeding-months. February to June and July to December. 
Vigors and Horsfield named this species after the then Secretary of the 
Linnean Society from specimens in that Society’s Museum ‘‘ discovered by 
Mr. Brown at Shoalwater Bay and Broad Sound, September 1802.” 
Gould a little later met with it and recorded : “ This beautiful little Finch 
inhabits the extensive plains of the interior, particularly such portions of them 
as are thinly intersected "with low scrubby trees and bushes. My specimens 
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