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CLIMACTERIS ERYTHROPS, Gowa.
Red-eyebrowed 'Tree-Creeper.

Climacteris erythrops, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part VIII. p. 148.

 

I oprarnep this new and highly interesting species while encamped on the low grassy hills under the Liver
pool range: from the manner of its ascending the trees and keeping almost entirely to the small upright
stems of the Casuarina, I believed it to be the White-throated Tree-Creeper (Climacteris picumnus) ; but
having made it a rule to shoot an example of every species I observed in each newly-visited locality, I was
in this instance rewarded with the acquisition of a new bird, which I afterwards found was numerous in
this part of the country. But whether it is generally distributed over the colony, or merely confined
to such districts as have a similar character to those in which I found it, I had no opportunity of as-
certaining. So far as I could observe, its habits and manners bore a striking resemblance to those of
the Chmacteris Picumnus.

One singular feature connected with this species, is the circumstance of the female alone being adorned ||
with the beautiful radiated rufous markings on the throat, the male having this part quite plain; this I |
ascertained beyond a doubt by the dissection of numerous specimens of both sexes; it is true that a faint
trace of this character is observable both in Climacteris scandens and C. rufa, but the present is the only
species of the genus in which this reversion of a general law of nature is so strikingly apparent.

The male has the crown of the head blackish brown, each feather margined with greyish brown ; lores
and a circle surrounding the eye reddish chestnut ; back brown ; sides of the neck, lower part of the back,
and upper tail-coverts grey; primaries blackish brown at the base and light brown at the tip, all but the
first crossed in the centre by a broad band of buff, to which succeeds another broad band of blackish brown ;
two centre tail-feathers grey, the remainder blackish brown, largely tipped with light grey; chin dull white,
passing into greyish brown on the chest ; the remainder of the under surface greyish brown, each feather
having a broad stripe of dull white, bounded on either side with black running down the centre, the lines
becoming blended, indistinct, and tinged with buff on the centre of the abdomen ; under tail-coverts buffy
white, crossed by irregular bars of black ; irides brown ; bill and feet black. |

The female differs in having the chestnut marking round the eye much richer, and in having, in place of
a series of feathers of a rusty red colour, with a broad stripe of dull white

the greyish brown on the breast,
om a common centre: in all other particulars her

down their middles, the stripes appearing to radiate fr
plumage resembles that of the male.
The figures are those of a male and a female of the natural size.

 

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