All the upper surface sandy brown, the centres of the feathers darker; primaries and tail greyish brown, slightly margined with reddish brown; immediately before the eye a triangular spot of brownish black; throat and chest dull white, the latter with a stripe of brown down each feather; under surface light brown; in the centre of the abdomen a patch of dark brown, each feather margined with pale brown; bill and feet fleshy brown.
The figures represent two males and a female of the natural size in different states of plumage.
CINCLORAMPHUS RUFESCENS.
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith. Hullmandel & Walton Imp.
CINCLORAMPHUS RUFESCENS.
Rufous-tinted Cincloramphus.
Anthus rufescens, Vig. & Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 230.
E-rolȅ-del, Aborigines of the Mountain districts of Western Australia.
Singing Lark of the Colonists.
If 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 perpendicular 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.