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EOPSALTRIA LEUCOGASTER, Gouwid.
White-bellied Robin.

Ecpsaltria leucogaster, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., February 24, 1846.

 

Tur White-bellied Robin is a native of Western Australia, but is only to be met with in the hilly por-
tions of the country. Mr. Gilbert states that the first specimen he procured was killed on the Darling
range, near the gorge of the River Murray, at an elevation of about seven or eight hundred feet, and that
he afterwards met with it on the southern extremity of the same range, between Vasse and Augusta, but
that he never observed it on the lower grounds between the mountain range and the coast. Like the other
species of the genus, it was constantly seen clinging to the bark of large upright trees, or straight and small
stems, in search of its insect food. It is extremely quiet and secluded in its habits, is almost exclusively
confined to the neighbourhood of small mountain streams, where scarcely any other sound is heard than
the rippling and gurgling of the water over the rocks, and on the slightest approach it immediately
secretes itself among the thick scrub or brushwood. Its song very closely resembles that of the Petroice.

Immediately before the eye a small triangular-shaped spot of black; above the eye a faint line of greyish
white ; crown of the head, all the upper surface, wings and tail dark slate-grey; the lateral tail-feathers
largely tipped with white on their inner webs; all the under surface white ; irides dark brown; bill and
feet black.

The Plate represents the bird of the natural size, on one of the beautiful and rare plants of Western
Australia, a species of Anigosanthus, the distinctive appellation of which I have not been able to ascertain.

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