Page:The Emu volume 3.djvu/30

 emerald orbits and their white cheeks appeared to me to at once distinguish them from M. brevirostris. After our return to Perth, a comparison with the skin of M. brevirostris disclosed other structural differences, and I declared the species a new one accordingly.

Malurus pulcherrimus (Blue-breasted Wren).—On our homeward journey, between Toll's Pass and Yetermirrup, the attention of Mr. Conigrave and myself was arrested by the tuneful song of the new Calamanthus, the author of which we located in a remarkable outcrop of rock some short distance from the road. Whilst in pursuit of the bird we disturbed a colony of Wrens, which we assumed to be Malurus elegans, for we could only get occasional momentary glimpses of them as they threaded their way through the denser patches of scrub. We endeavoured by all means at our command to flush them, but unsuccessfully, as they were so timid and secretive. After awaiting some time I got a snap shot at a male bird as he showed himself for a moment, but failed to kill. Finding a new lemon-scented boronia in the rock clefts, I ceased pursuit for a few minutes, but Mr. Conigrave, exhibiting greater persistence, tracked them from bush to bush by their tell-tale voices, and eventually was rewarded with a male bird, and shortly afterwards a female bird. Without examining them critically he placed them in his bag, and joined me in my botanical examination. When about to resume our journey I asked to see and was shown the birds. One glance sufficed to show that they were not familiar forms. We at once abandoned our intention of immediately resuming our journey, and commenced to beat the scrubs for the remainder of the colony, but notwithstanding that we could hear them occasionally in the undergrowth we could not sight them. Our persistence was fruitless, and we were reluctantly compelled to give up pursuit and follow the team, which was now ahead of us some miles. On reaching the camp at Yetermirrup we talked the matter over at some length, and, having regard to the facts that very many of the Maluri are local in habit, and that the outcrop was the only one of the kind we had observed, we decided that the locality should be searched again next morning—a decision which involved a journey of 15 miles, in addition to the next day's stage of 12 miles in new country. To my secret satisfaction, Mr. Conigrave volunteered to return alone in the morning, and appreciating that he was some 25 years younger, I readily, and perhaps selfishly, acquiesced in his lone undertaking. Shortly after daylight next morning he began his walk back, and we in due time proceeded on the next stage. He had not long gone before I regretted his undertaking, for, making a side exploration from the track in some likely-looking country, my dog, who accompanied me, disturbed a number of Maluri, and the male bird showing itself on the top of a dead bush, I immediately shot it, and found it to be M. pulcherrimus. In the late afternoon Mr. Conigrave reached camp after a rough and arduous journey of