Page:The Emu volume 20.djvu/227

 Rhipidura motacilloides. Black-and-White Fantail.—Common around Shark Bay; breeding on Dirk Hartog, October, 1918. A pair bred at a pearlers' camp on Peron Peninsula, the nest being actually placed in the building.

Graucalus melanops. Black-Faced Cuckoo-Shrike—Mr. Carter records a single pair on Dirk Hartog. It is evidently only a casual visitor.

Pomatostomus superciliosus. White-browed Babbler.—Absent from Dirk Hartog, but found sparingly on Peron. Saw the remains of old nests.

Calamanthus campestris hartogi and C. c. peroni. Field-Wrens. — The Field-Wren of Dirk Hartog is said by Mr. Carter to differ from that on the Peron Peninsula sufficiently to constitute a sub-species. The Dirk Hartog variety is widely distributed over the island, being a common bird, and one of the few that there breaks the silence of the bush with its cheerful little notes. It inhabits the steep slopes of the main ridge and also the valleys or headlands covered with low scrub near the coast. It is by no means shy, and is usually observed singing from the topmost spray of some dead bush.

It must be a very early breeder. By the middle of June fledged young were on the wing. Possibly pairs may breed twice in the season, as I found young in the nest in September. I took a nest with three eggs, 28th June. These eggs were somewhat incubated. The female sat closely, only leaving the nest when I was a few feet away. The site chosen was a little mound of earth, with a small heath-like plant growing on the summit. The nest was well concealed. Two other nests were in similar situations, but a fourth was not so carefully hidden. I was too late for nests on Peron Peninsula, but saw a fair number of birds. Young were on the wing when I landed in the middle of September. There would be nothing remarkable in the Shark Bay Field-Wrens differing from birds inhabiting the hot interior—say around Lake Austin—where the average rainfall is barely seven inches and the general elevation of the country about 1,300 feet; but it requires a fine discrimination to detect differences in plumage in local clans of a species separated from one another by a strait only about 20 miles wide. (For further remarks see Campbell, Emu. xviii., p. 257.)

Cinclorhamphus cruralis. Black-breasted Song-Lark.—A single male watched for several weeks at the West well. It had no mate, and was taken as a type. A pair was evidently about to breed early in July in a locality three miles to the north. Probably only casual visitors.

Ephthianura albifrons. White-fronted Bush-Chat.—This species was seen around the West well on my first visit to Dirk Hartog, and again in the months of June and July, 1920. Out of about fifteen or twenty birds, however, in the latter instance. I could see only one adult pair. The other individuals were probably last year's young, or some or some of them may have been hatched very early in the season. Not observed on Peron, but probably lives there on the samphire Hals.

Ephthianura tricolor. Tricoloured Bush-Chat.—Mr. Carter observed three on Dirk Hartog, where it is no doubt an occasional visitor.