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The Emu 
{ Official Organ of the Royal Australasian Ornithologists’ Union 
“ Birds of a Feather. ,, 
VOL. XXIV.] 1st APRIL, 1925. ' _ [ ?ART 4 
4 
Notes on the Rusty Field-Wren 
(Calamanthus isabellinus) 
By EDWIN ASHBY, C.F.A.O.U., M.B.O.U,, Blackwood, S.A. 
The Rusty Field-Wren was described by North in 1896 from 
skins collected by Keartland at Missionary Plains, Central Aus¬ 
tralia, in 1894, the description being published in the Report of 
the Horn Expedition, Vol. II., Zoology, page 85, 1896. 
In the type form the striations on the crown were absent or 
semi-obsolete. A bird similar in coloration but with well- 
marked striations on the crown and back was described bv 
Campbell from a skin ‘collected by Carter at Point Cloates, in 
the north-west of Western Australia, under the name Calaman- 
thiis rubiginosus, the description being published in I he Vic¬ 
torian Naturalist, Vol. XVI., page 3, May, 1899. 
The Rusty Field-Wren is essentially a bird of the dry in¬ 
terior, or, as we so often term it, a desert bird. Keartland, 
in his .original, field-notes, says that it frequents the desolate 
gibber plains, “far away from scrub or shelter of any kind, two 
of these little birds were seen running over the stones or gibbers, 
as actively and quickly as a Dotterel on the sea beach.'” 
A specimen in my own collection, taken at Leigh’s Creek in 
South Australia, Dec. 12, 1910, is identical with another col¬ 
lected at Day Dawn, in Western Australia, May 13, 1903, both 
being without striations on the crown and faintly striated only 
on the back. On the other hand, in the same collection, is a 
male, also taken at Day Dawn, in June of the same year, in 
which the crown is as strongly striated as in Campbell’s C. 
rubiginosus and the striations on the neck and breast are darker 
and double the width of those on the specimens referred to 
above. 
While in most of the skins from Leigh’s Creek there is little 
or no striation on the crown, a few from this locality are well 
striated. McGilp reported that in the Lake Frome district 
