60 THE AUSTRALIAN NA1sURALIST. 
FROM A BUSH NOTE BOOK, CASINO. 
By F. M. Irsy. 
In the middle of May we found two nests of the pretty 
little Red Head (Aegintha temporalis) containing eggs. Cer- 
tainly the Red Head takes little heed of time or season, for I 
have sometimes found their nests'in July and usually there are 
three or four eggs in a nest, but we once found one with seven. 
The other finches are equally erratic. 
Very large flocks of Chestnut-breasted finch (Munita cas- 
taneithorax) occasionally come about. Last year we found two 
of their nests in May, both being in a most unusual position for 
finches nests, being built amongst the dry hanging leaves half 
way up the maize stalks in a field of ripe corn. One family 
was just able to fly, the other only half-hatched. 
“he Double Bars (Stictoptera bichenovii) continue nesting 
as late in the year; a few mornings ago (May) I saw a family 
which had just left the nest, huddled on the low bough of a 
swamp oak, waiting for the small parents to bring food, and 
I remember at the end of March once finding a nest containing 
three young, one freshly hatched, and the others almost ready 
to fly, which they did before the other was feathered. The 
parent birds attended faithfully to it until it also left the nest. 
Have sometimes found the Diamond sparrow (Stagono- 
pleura guttata) nests at the end of March. It is curious how 
this little bird will frequently return to the same place, to build, 
if not actually to the same bush. I have seen one, when its nest 
and young had been destroyed by a cat, build again in the 
same creeper a few weeks later. 
The poor little finches have a hard time for their big grass 
nests are so conspicuous as to be easily seen by their enemies. 
Perhaps it is on this account that they so often choose the very 
heart of some prickly shrub or creeper in which to build, such 
as a cock-spur or wild lime. In the middle west I noticed too 
the lovely little Zebra finch (Taeniopygia castanotis) often built 
in the wild orange, but even in such thorny places they are not 
always safe, for I have seen a nest of eggs destroyed by an — 
iguana in the very heat of a wild lime, so thorny that you 
might well think no living, feeling thing could climb it. 
A few days ago I found another belated nest; a part of 
the ereek bank had fallen in carrying with it a number of 
swamp oaks, and high up in the broken bank a tiny Black 
headed diamond bird (Pardalotus melanocephalus) had dug her 
