CINCLORAMPHUS RUFESCENS.

Rufous-tinted Cincloramphus.

 

Anthus rufescens, Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 230.
E-rolé-del, Aborigines of the Mountain districts of Western Australia.
Singing Lark of the Colonists.

 

Ir Australia be not celebrated for its singing-birds, it has still some few whose voices serve to enliven the
monotony of its scenery; and of these no one deserves greater attention than the bird here represented,
which is a very sweet songster, and whose note somewhat resembles, but is much inferior to that of our own
Skylark. With the exception of Van Diemen’s Land, where I believe it is never seen, it appears to be
distributed over all parts of Australia, as evidenced by my collection, containing specimens from every
locality yet visited by Europeans. In New South Wales and Western Australia it is strictly migratory, and
only a summer visitor, arriving in August and departing in February; on the other hand, I met with it on
the sand hills at Holdfast Bay in South Australia in the month of July, the period of winter: although
not exclusively a terrestrial bird, it spends much of its time on the ground, from which it makes per-
pendicular ascents to a great height in the air, and then descending to the tops of the highest trees, flies
horizontally from one tree to another, singing all the time with the greatest volubility ; the female, which is
not more than half the size of the male, remaining all the while on the ground, from which she is not easily
aroused, and consequently not so often seen. It evinces a great partiality to open grassy plains here and
there studded with trees. It breeds in October, November and December, and sometimes rears two
broods during the season. The nest is placed in a depression of the earth, most frequently at the foot
of a slightly raised tuft of grass, and is externally composed of strong grasses and lined with very fine
grasses, and sometimes with hairs. The eggs are four in number, ten lines long by seven and a half lines
broad, and are of a purplish white, very boldly marked with freckles and small blotches of deep chestnut-
brown, so much so as frequently to render the blotches more conspicuous than the ground colour.

The female frequently utters a monotonous shriek or call at night.

surface dark brown, each feather margined with olive-brown ; upper tail-

The male has all the upper
t whitish; all the under surface pale brown-

coverts rufous; lores black; stripe above the eye and throa
ish grey, deepening into buff on the under tail-coverts, and with a series of minute spots of brown on ue
breast ; irides hazel; bill dark lead-colour in summer, fleshy brown in winter; tarsi yellowish grey; feet
bluish ashy grey.

The female is smaller and is destitute of the bl

separate description is unnecessary.

 

ack lores ; in other respects she is so like the male that a

The figures represent the two sexes of the natural size, on a branch of the cherry-tree of the colonists

(Kevocarpus Cupressiformis).