RITLE-BIRD. 
purplish-green. Eyes brown, bill and feet black. Total length 276 mm. ; culmen 
50, wing 159, tail 96, tarsus 36. Figured. Collected on the Tweed River, Northern 
New South Wales, in August, 1912. 
Adult female. Top of the head and back of the neck ash-brown, each feather with narrow 
shaft-streaks of buffish-white ; back, rump, upper tail-coverts and wing-coverts 
imiform brownish-olive ; tail-feathers olive-brown, narrowly margined on the outer 
web with buff ; a broad superciliary stripe of creamy-white featlrers; lores and 
featliers below' the eye ash-brown with narrow whitish shaft-streaks ; chin wliite, 
tlwoat and sides of the neck cream-buff; remainder of the under-surface of the body 
ochraceous-buff with crescentric markings and bars of brownish-black, producing a 
scale appearance; primaries and secondaries ash-brown with the margins of the 
outer webs brownish-chestnut and the inner webs widely margined with chestnut- 
buff. Eyes brown, feet black, bill blackish, with lower base horn. Total length 
275 mm. ; culmen 50, wing 142, tail 88, tarsus 35. Figured. Collected on the 
Richmond River, Northern New' South Wales, in October, 1901. 
Immature very like the immatme of the next species. 
Eggs. Two eggs form the clutch, sometimes only one. A clutch of two eggs taken 
at Booyong, Richmond River, New South Wales, on the 2nd of November, 1899, 
is of a beautiful reddish-cream groimd-coloiu’, very regularly marked with spots 
and longitudinal streaks, or brush-like markings of an artist, of red, reddish-chestnut, 
purphsh-red and purplish-grey, many of the latter appearing as if beneath 
the surface of the shell. The markings are larger and more numerous at the larger 
end of each egg, and possess quite a hand-painted appearance. Rather swollen 
ovals in shape. Surface of shell fine, smooth and glossy. 34 by 23 mm. 
Nest. A rather large structure, open and cup-shaped. Composed chiefly of large, dead, 
brown leaves, vine tendrils, etc., and covered over outside with a quantity of green 
and growing fronds of a small thick-leaved climbing fern knowu as Poly'podium 
confluens, which climbs up the trunks and limbs of the scrub trees. It is more or 
less omamentedwith the cast-off skins of snakes, and often long pieces, over 12 inches 
in length, hang from the edge of the nest or the bushes or vines beside it. More 
snake skins are daily added after the eggs have been laid. It is lined with stiff 
wire-like portions of glossy fern stems, and tliin hard rootlets ; a few pieces of 
snake skin are general!}^ found at the bottom of the nest directly under the eggs. 
The parts of the skin usually selected for this particular purpose are several of the 
belly scales of the underneath portion of the snake. Dimensions over aU, 8 to nearly 
10 inches across by 4 to 6 inches in depth. Egg cavity, 4 to 4J inches across by 
2 to nearly 2^ inches deep. 
Nest usually placed and weU-hidden in a dense mass of foliage or vines in the topmost 
part of a bushy tree, at heights varying from 6 to over 90 feet from the grormd. 
Breeding-^nonths. October, November and December. 
Though this bird early received three names, the first field-notes appear to 
have been published by Gould, who w rote : “ Hitherto this magnificent bird 
has only been discovered in the brushes of the south-eastern portion of Australia ; 
so limited in fact does its range of habitat seem to be, that the river Hunter 
to the southward, and Moreton Bay to the eastward, may be considered its 
natural boundaries in either direction. I have been informed by several persons 
vho have seen it in its native w'ilds that it possesses many habits in common 
with the Climacteres, and that it ascends the upright boles of trees precisely 
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