Page:The Emu volume 3.djvu/265

 late for their nests and eggs, as all their broods were out. I caught several young birds at different times, but after examining them returned them to their parents' care. I have now found and have recorded this species at two different places in Western Australia—the first at the Stirling Ranges, in the south (see Emu, vol. iii., page 14), the second at the Wongan Hills. These I take to be the most southern and northern limits respectively of the species, but I shall be surprised, indeed, if the species is not afterwards found at elevated rocky places between the above limits. They undoubtedly are not only lovers of stony and rocky places, but also of mountainous ones.

Our first clay's outing in the Hills was also productive of another rare form in Drymaœdus pallidus (?). When emerging from one of the dense scrubs into more open country I heard a series of clear, thrush-like notes just ahead of me. The author of them I found sitting on a dead branch of a fallen shrub. Quite unconscious of my presence, he continued his song. It was, I confess, with some qualms of conscience that I shot the bird, but the exigencies of science had to be satisfied. On picking him up, his mate came running up quite close to me and for some time fed about unconcernedly within a few feet. I need scarcely say that I did not molest her. Other specimens were obtained subsequently, included in the number being an advanced fledgling. On comparing the skins obtained with the Eastern form (D. brunneopygius) I cannot detect any differences between the Eastern and Western forms. Certainly, in one or two skins of the latter the under parts are a little lighter in colour than in the former, but on the other hand one of the adults we secured was very much darker on those parts than the Eastern bird.

On the same day's outing we met with a family of the Rufous-rumped Ground-Wrens (Hylacola cauta), one of which Mr. Conigrave was fortunate in getting. The locality in which they were found was a flat-bottomed gully of rich red soil with dwarf scrub growing upon it. We found the members of the family most fearless and familiar. On my imitating the cry of a young bird, these bright, coquettish little fellows, with tails elevated, would approach me by short, rapid runs, scrutinizing critically at each brief stoppage, and then fearlessly run over my feet as I stood. Running off again in the scrub, I would bring them back again and again with the same device. The birds do not resort to flight, but run along the ground like mice, and thread their way through the undergrowth, the tails always being carried vertically. When first disturbed, the adult bird utters a single scolding note, and repeats the same at intervals while the intruder remains. They possess, however, a spirited, clear song, which is uttered when perched on a bare limb in a low bush. They appear to be very local in habit, for the only place except one we found them in the Hills was in the gully mentioned, which we named after the genus. The broods