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THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Mr. J. P. Rogers wrote from North-west Australia: “ April 2nd, 1909: 
Found nest of six eggs much incubated (one parent flew off the nest), nest 
built in a bunch of ribbon grass about three inches from the ground. 
April 19th: More numerous than they were some time ago. May 16th: 
Numerous smce leaving the Stud Station (fifty miles from Wyndliam) all the 
way to Wild Dog Creek, 170 miles south of Wyndham.” 
Smedley wrote from North Queensland: “ Saw first specimen in 1899, 
taken on Campaspe River; got a nest 26th April, 1895, inside railway fence 
(homestead). Few to be seen here now. I have some ahve in cage.” 
Berney’s notes from the Richmond District, North Queensland, read: 
“ This is an micertam visitor. One year or another I have seen them durmg 
all the four seasons, but they generally pick the good times; this year they 
are more plentiful than I have ever seen them before. Though generally to be 
seen m twos or tluees, there are sometimes as many as fifteen or twenty 
together. They invariably frequent the peabush {Seshania aculeatu) flats 
and other low-lying spots, where the grass and herbage grows rather rank. 
Their note is a simple ‘ Chip, chip, chip.’ ” 
MacgiUivray noted: “ First noted at Sedan, but found to be more 
plentiful near the ranges. They were also met with on the Leichardt and 
Gregory Rivers. Stomach contents, seeds.” 
Barnard has ^vritten from the McArthur, Northern Territory: “ A few of 
these birds appeared on the tableland m February and March, and bred in 
the grass on the plains. The nest is a bulky grass structure placed low in the 
grass. Five and six pure white eggs formed a clutch.” 
Described by Gould under the genus name Aimdiiia he later transferred 
it to Donacola, and when Sharpe merged that genus mider Munia in The 
Catalogue of the Birds in the British Museum he included this species, but 
was apparently’' very doubtful as it comes last and was omitted from the 
“Key” to the species. 
In my “ Reference List ” in 1912 I left it in Munia ■with one sub¬ 
species, "viz.: 
Munia pectoralis pectoralis ((^uld). 
North-west Austraha. 
Munia pectoralis incerta Mathews. 
“ Differs from M. p. pectoralis in bemg brown and not blue-grey above. 
Alexandra, Northern Territory.” 
Northern Territory. 
Later, I introduced the genus Heteromunia, and under that name included 
the same two subspecies in my 1913 “ List,” and no additions or alterations 
have since been made. 
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