Part 15

This bird is generally dispersed over the colonies of New South Wales and South Australia, where it inhabits nearly every kind of situation, from the open forest lands of the interior to the brushes of thickly grown trees near the sea-coast; shrubs not a yard high, and the branches of the highest gum-trees being alike resorted to. It is certainly the least ornamental of the Australian birds, for it is neither gay-coloured, nor is it characterized by any conspicuous markings; these deficiencies, however, are, as is usually the case, amply compensated for by the little sombre tenant of the forest being endowed with a most cheerful and pleasing song, the notes of which much resemble, but are more clear and powerful than the spring notes of the Chaffinch (_Fringilla Cœlebs_), and which are poured forth at the dawn of day from the topmost dead branch of a lofty gum-tree, an elevated position which appears to be frequently resorted to for the purpose of serenading its mate, its usual place of abode being much nearer the ground. It is mostly met with in pairs, and may be frequently seen perched on the low bushy twigs of a thistle-like plant, occasionally on the gates and palings and in the gardens of the settlers; Mr. Caley states that “it has all the actions of the British _Robin Red-breast_, except coming inside houses. When a piece of ground was fresh dug it was always a constant attendant.” It appeared to me that its actions resemble quite as much those of the Flycatchers as of the Robins, and at the same time are sufficiently distinct from either to justify the bird being made the type of a new genus; I may particularly mention a singular lateral movement of the tail, which it is continually moving from side to side.

Its food consists of insects, which it captures both among the foliage of the trees and on the wing, frequently flying forth in pursuit of passing flies and returning again to the branch it had left.

It generally rears two broods in the course of the year.

The nest, which is built in October, is a slight, nearly flat and very small structure, measuring only two inches and a half in diameter by half an inch in depth; it is formed of fine fibrous roots, decorated externally with lichens and small flat pieces of bark, attached by means of fine vegetable fibres and cobwebs; and is most artfully placed in the fork of a dead horizontal branch, whereby it is rendered so nearly invisible from beneath, that it easily escapes detection from all but the scrutinizing eye of the aboriginal native. The eggs are generally two in number, of a pale greenish blue, strongly marked with dashes of chestnut-brown and indistinct blotches of grey; they are eight and a half lines long by five and a half lines broad.

The sexes are alike in colour; the young differs from the adult in being much paler, and in being spotted with white on the head and back and with brown on the breast.

The adult has all the upper surface and wings pale brown; wing-coverts slightly tipped with white, and a wash of white on the margins of the tertiaries and tips of the upper tail-coverts; tail dark brown, the external feather white, and the next on each side with a large spot of white on the inner web at the tip; all the under surface pale brownish white, fading into nearly pure white on the chin and abdomen; bill, irides and feet brown.

The figures represent the two sexes of the size of life.

MICRŒCA FLAVIGASTER, Gould. Yellow-bellied Micrœca.

_Micrœca flavigaster_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part X. p. 132.

_Brown Flycatcher_, Residents at Port Essington.

This little Flycatcher, which is a native of the northern portions of Australia, is met with in the neighbourhood of Port Essington in every variety of situation, and is particularly abundant on all the islands in Van Diemen’s Gulf. “Its habits and manners,” says Mr. Gilbert, “assimilate more nearly to those of the _Petroicæ_ than to those of any other group. It gives utterance to many different notes, pouring forth at the dawn of day a strain much resembling that of some of the _Petroicæ_, and like them remaining stationary for a long time while giving utterance to its very pretty and agreeable melody. In the middle of the day, when the sun is nearly vertical, it leaves the trees and soars upward in regular circles, like the Skylark, until it arrives at so great a height as to be scarcely perceptible; it then descends perpendicularly until it nearly reaches the trees, when it closes its wings and apparently falls upon the branch on which it alights. During the whole of this movement it pours forth a song, some parts of which are very soft and melodious, but quite different from that of the morning; in the evening its song is again varied, and then so much resembles the unconnected notes of the _Gerygones_, that I have frequently been misled by it. The _Micrœca flavigaster_ is a very familiar species, inhabiting the trees and bushes close around the houses, and is little alarmed or disturbed at the approach of man. At times it is extremely pugnacious; I have seen a pair attack a crow and beat it until it was obliged to seek safety by flight, all the while calling out most lustily. Notwithstanding it is so abundant everywhere, and it must have been breeding during my stay here, as is proved by my killing young birds apparently only a few days old, I did not succeed in finding the nest; and on inquiring of the natives, they could give me no information whatever respecting it or the period of incubation.”

The sexes do not differ in colour or size.

The stomach is tolerably muscular, and the food consists of insects of various kinds.

All the upper surface brownish olive; wings and tail brown, margined with paler brown; throat white; all the under surface yellow; irides blackish brown; feet blackish grey.

The figures are of the natural size.

MONARCHA CARINATA. Carinated Flycatcher.

_Muscipeta carinata_, Swains. Zool. Ill., 1st ser., pl. 147.

_Drymophila carinata_, Temm. Pl. Col. 418. f. 2.

_Monarcha carinata_, Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 255.—Gould in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part II.

This is a migratory bird in New South Wales, arriving in spring and departing before winter. It gives a decided preference to thick brushy forests, such as those at Illawarra and other similar districts extending from the Hunter to Moreton Bay. It is also equally abundant in the thick brushes which clothe the sloping mountains of the interior. During the spring or pairing time it becomes very animated, and is continually flying about and beneath the branches of the trees; it does not capture insects, like the true Flycatchers, on the wing, but obtains them while hopping about from branch to branch, after the manner of the _Pachycephalæ_. It has a rather loud whistling note, which being often repeated tends considerably to enliven the woods in which it dwells.

I dissected many examples in the bright plumage, all of which proved to be males, yet I could not fully satisfy myself whether the upper bird in the Plate is a female, a young bird, or a distinct species; I believe, however, that it will prove to be the female.

The _Monarcha carinata_ does not inhabit Van Diemen’s Land or South Australia; its great nursery is evidently the south-eastern portion of the country: a distinct but nearly-allied species inhabits the north coast, of which I have specimens in my collection from the neighbourhood of Cape York.

Forehead, lores and throat jet-black; all the upper surface grey; wings and tail brown; sides of the neck and the chest light grey; abdomen and under tail-coverts rufous; bill beautiful light blue-grey, the tip paler than the base; legs bluish lead-colour; irides black; inside of the mouth greyish blue.

In all probability, the females and the young males of the year are destitute of the black mark on the face, and the upper figure is that of a female or a male in the plumage of the first year.

The figures are of the size of life.

MONARCHA TRIVIRGATA. Black-fronted Flycatcher.

_Drymophila trivirgata_, Temm. Pl. Col. 418, fig. 1.

_Monarcha trivirgata_, Gould in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part II.

Although the _Monarcha trivirgata_ has been known to naturalists for many years it is still a scarce bird, very few specimens occurring in any of the numerous collections sent home from Australia, which is doubtless occasioned by its true habitat not having been yet discovered. All the specimens I have seen have been procured in the Moreton Bay district of the east coast.

I have never yet seen what may be considered the female of this bird; all the examples that have come under my notice being males and marked precisely alike, with the exception of one procured during the early part of Dr. Leichardt’s expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington, which differs in being destitute of the rufous tint on the flanks.

Forehead, throat, space round the eye, and the ears jet-black; upper surface dark grey; tail black, the three outer feathers on each side largely tipped with white; cheeks, chest and flanks rufous; abdomen and tail-coverts white; bill lead-colour; feet black.

The figures are of the natural size, and represent the bird as usually seen, and also the variation in colouring above-mentioned.

GERYGONE ALBOGULARIS, _Gould_. White-throated Gerygone.

_Psilopus albogularis_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 147; and in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IV.

This sprightly and active little bird is a stationary species and is abundantly dispersed over all parts of New South Wales, but evinces a greater preference for the open forests of _Eucalypti_ than for the brushes near the coast. I found it in considerable numbers in every part of the Upper Hunter district, nearly always among the gum-trees, and constantly uttering a peculiar and not very harmonious strain. Like its near allies it is very active among the small leafy branches of the trees, where it searches with the greatest avidity for insects, upon which it almost exclusively subsists; resorting for this purpose to trees of all heights, from the low sapling of two yards high to those of the loftiest growth.

I believe that a species very nearly allied to the present inhabits the north coast of Australia: it is very readily distinguished by the markings of the tail; and must not be confounded with the bird here represented.

I have killed young birds in January which had not long left the nest, but was not so fortunate as to discover the nest itself.

The sexes are nearly alike in plumage; but the young of the year are distinguished from the adult by the throat being of the same colour as the breast, instead of white.

Crown of the head, ear-coverts, and all the upper surface olive-brown; throat white; chest and all the under surface bright citron-yellow; two centre tail-feathers brown, the remainder brown at the base, above which is a bar of white, succeeded by a broader one of deep blackish brown; the tips of all but the two middle ones buffy white on their inner web; bill blackish brown; irides scarlet; feet blackish brown in some specimens, and leaden brown in others.

The figures represent an adult and a young bird of the year of the natural size.

GERYGONE FUSCA, _Gould_. Fuscous Gerygone.

_Psilopus fuscus_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 147; and in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IV.

_Gerygone fusca_, Gould in De Strzelecki’s Phys. Descr. of New South Wales and Van Diemen’s Land, p. 321.

The _Gerygone fusca_ is an inhabitant of New South Wales, where it is to be found in all the brushes near the coast, as well as in the cedar and other brushes on the sides of the ranges in the interior. As its form would lead us to imagine, it has much of the habit of the Flycatcher, and lives almost exclusively upon insects, such as aphides and other swift-winged species, which are as frequently taken on the wing as they are on the under sides of leaves, &c. It particularly loves to dwell in the most retired and gloomy part of the forest, among the creeping Bignonias, &c., and is a most active and lively little bird, flitting about from branch to branch; sometimes, like the true Flycatchers, returning again to the same branch, and at others hanging to the smaller branches and scrutinizing the under sides of the leaves, after the manner of the _Acanthizæ_.

Its song, which is almost incessantly poured forth, is a pleasing, twittering sound.

The breeding-season comprises the months of September, October and November. The nest is a delicate and beautiful structure of a domed oblong form, the lower end terminating in a point, with the entrance at the side near the top covered with a well-formed spout, which completely excludes both sun and rain from the interior of the nest; it is about eight inches in height and ten in circumference; the spout projecting about two inches, and the entrance being scarcely an inch in diameter. The body of a nest found in the brushes of the Hunter was composed of green moss, mouse-eared lichen, soft wiry grasses, the inner bark of trees and other materials, and was lined with extremely soft grasses. The eggs are three in number, and are very similar, both in size and colour, to those of the _Malurus cyaneus_, being minutely speckled with red on a white ground; they are seven and a half lines long by five and a half lines broad.

The sexes are alike in colour.

Crown of the head, all the upper surface and wings dark fuscous brown, slightly tinged with olive; two centre tail-feathers brown; the remainder white at the base, succeeded by a broad band of deep blackish brown, round which is a broad stripe of white, which entirely crosses the outer feathers, but only the inner webs of the remainder, the tips pale brown; throat and chest grey; abdomen and under tail-coverts white; bill and feet deep blackish brown; irides bright brownish red.

The Plate represents the bird of the natural size.

GERYGONE CULICIVORUS, _Gould_. Western Gerygone.

_Psilopus culicivorus_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part VIII. p. 174.

_War̈-ryle-bur-dang_, Aborigines of the lowlands of Western Australia.

This species is plentifully dispersed over the colony of Swan River in Western Australia, where it inhabits forests, scrubs, and all situations where flowering-trees abound, and where it is seen either in pairs or in small groups of four or five in number. Its food consists wholly of aphides and other small insects, which are captured on the wing or from off the flowers; it sometimes traverses the smaller branches, and even the upright boles of trees, prying about and searching for its prey with the most scrutinizing care. Its powers of flight are rarely exerted for any other purpose than to convey it from shrub to shrub, and for its little sallies in pursuit of insects, much after the manner of the true Flycatchers.

Its notes are very varied, being at one time a singing kind of whistle, and at others a somewhat pleasing and plaintive melody; but it has a singular habit of uttering, when flitting from tree to tree, a succession of notes and half-notes, some of which are harmoniously blended, while others are equally discordant, and resemble a person producing notes at random on an instrument with which he is unacquainted.

It is said by the natives to breed in September and October.

The nest is suspended by the top to the extremity of a branch, and is formed of threads of bark, small spiders’ nests, green moss, &c., all felted together with cobwebs and vegetable fibres, and warmly lined with feathers; it is about eight inches in length, pointed at the top and at the bottom, and about nine inches in circumference in the middle; the entrance is a small round hole, about three inches from the top, with a slight projection immediately above it. I did not succeed in procuring the eggs.

The sexes are alike in plumage.

All the upper surface olive-brown; wings brown margined with olive; two centre tail-feathers brown; the remainder white, crossed by an irregular band of black and tipped with brown, the band upon all but the external feathers so blending with the brown at the tip that the white between merely forms a spot on the inner web; lores blackish brown; line over the eye, throat and chest light grey, passing into buff on the flanks, and into white on the centre of the abdomen and under tail-coverts; irides light reddish yellow; bill and feet black.

The Plate represents a male and a female of the natural size.

GERYGONE MAGNIROSTRIS, _Gould_. Great-billed Gerygone.

_Gerygone magnirostris_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part X. p. 133.

Of this species I regret to say but little information has as yet been received; the two examples in my collection are all that have come under my notice, and these were shot by Mr. Gilbert on Greenhill Island near Port Essington, while hovering over the blossoms of the mangroves and engaged in capturing the smaller kinds of insects upon which it feeds, during which occupation he observed that it gave utterance to an extremely weak twittering song: unfortunately he had no further opportunity of making himself acquainted with its habits and manners, which, however, doubtless resemble those of the other members of the genus.

All the upper surface brown; margins of the primaries slightly tinged with olive; tail-feathers crossed near the extremity by an indistinct broad band of brownish black; all the under surface white, tinged with brownish buff; irides light brown; bill olive-brown; the base of the lower mandible pearl-white; feet greenish grey.

The Plate represents male and female of the natural size.

GERYGONE LÆVIGASTER, _Gould_. Buff-breasted Gerygone.

_Gerygone lævigaster_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part X. p. 133.

Mr. Gilbert killed several specimens of this little bird on the Cobourg Peninsula, and on the islands in Van Diemen’s Gulf, and sometimes observed a solitary individual among the mangroves near the settlement of Port Essington. He states that it has a very pleasing but weak piping note, and occasionally utters a number of notes in slow succession, but not so much lengthened as those of the _Gerygone culicivorus_ of Swan River; like that bird it hovers up and down the smaller branches of the trees and creeps about the thickets. It is very tame, and scarcely ever flies from the tree upon the approach of an intruder, but sits turning its little head about from side to side until the hand is almost upon it, when it merely hops upon another branch and again quietly looks about, apparently quite unconcerned.

The stomach is tolerably muscular, and the food consists of small insects, principally of the soft-winged kinds.

A narrow obscure line, commencing at the nostrils and passing over the eye, yellowish white; all the upper surface rusty brown; primaries brown, margined with lighter brown; tail whitish at the base, gradually deepening into nearly black, the lateral feather largely, and the remainder, except the two middle ones, slightly tipped with white; all the under surface white, slightly washed with yellow; irides light reddish brown; bill olive-brown; base of lower mandible light ash-grey; feet dark greenish grey.

The figures represent the two sexes of the natural size.

GERYGONE CHLORONOTUS, _Gould_. Green-backed Gerygone.

_Gerygone chloronotus_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part X. p. 133.

This species is an inhabitant of the northern parts of Australia: it is tolerably abundant at Port Essington, where it dwells among the extensive beds of mangroves which stretch along the coast. It is of a very shy and retiring disposition, and as the colouring of its back assimilates very closely to that of the leaves of the mangroves, it is a very difficult bird to sight as it creeps about among the thick branches in search of insects, upon which it solely subsists. In form and in most of its habits and economy it offers some difference from the typical members of the genus _Gerygone_, and it would be no great stretch of propriety to assign to it a new generic appellation: the more lengthened form of its legs, the more rigid structure of its primaries, and the lesser development of the bristles at the gape, are among the points in which it differs from the _Gerygone fuscus_ of the brushes of New South Wales. The latter feeds upon the smallest kinds of gnats and other soft insects which it captures in the air; on the other hand, the structure of the present bird would lead us to infer that the insects it feeds upon are procured either on the leaves or about the branches.

The sexes are so precisely similar in plumage, and differ so little in size, that dissection must be resorted to to distinguish the one from the other.

Head and back of the neck brownish grey; back, wing-coverts, rump, upper tail-coverts, margins of the primaries, and the margins of the basal half of the tail-feathers bright olive-green; primaries and tail-feathers brown, the latter becoming much darker towards the extremity; under surface white; sides and vent olive-yellow; irides wood-brown; upper mandible greenish grey; lower mandible white; feet blackish grey.

The Plate represents the two sexes of the natural size.

SMICRORNIS BREVIROSTRIS, _Gould_. Short-billed Smicrornis.

_Psilopus brevirostris_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 147.

_Geah-ter-but_, Aborigines of the mountain districts of Western Australia.

Until more information has been acquired respecting the members of this genus, I shall regard the species from Swan River and New South Wales as the same, although some trivial differences exist in the examples from those distant localities.