The male has all the upper surface dark brown, each feather margined with olive-brown; upper tail-coverts rufous; lores black; stripe above the eye and throat whitish; all the under surface pale brownish grey, deepening into buff on the under tail-coverts, and with a series of minute spots of brown on the 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 black lores; in other respects she is so like the male that a separate description is unnecessary.
The figures represent the two sexes of the natural size, on a branch of the cherry-tree of the colonists (Exocarpus Cupressiformis).
MIRAFRA HORSFIELDII: Gould.
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith. Hullmandel & Walton Imp.
MIRAFRA HORSFIELDII, Gould.
Horsfield’s Mirafra.
Mirafra Horsfieldii, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., January 27, 1847.
This species, which I have named Horsfieldii in honour of the founder of the genus, is sparingly dispersed over all the plains and open districts of New South Wales, but is more abundant on the inner side of the mountain ranges towards the interior than between the ranges and the sea; I have also a specimen procured during Dr. Leichardt’s overland expedition from Moreton Bay, and one from the neighbourhood of Port Essington: both of these, although possessing characters common to each other, differ from specimens obtained in New South Wales in being larger, redder in colour, and in having a stouter bill—features which will probably hereafter prove them to be distinct, and which exhibit a near alliance to the true Mirafra Javanica.
The bird here figured is from New South Wales, where I found it more abundant on the Liverpool Plains than elsewhere; I also met with solitary individuals in the district of the Upper Hunter.
In its habits it is more terrestrial than arboreal, and will frequently allow itself to be almost trodden upon before it will rise, and then it merely flies to a short distance and descends again; it may often be seen perched upon the strong blades of grass and occasionally on the trees; it frequently mounts high in the air after the manner of the Skylark of Europe, singing all the time very melodiously, but with a weaker strain than that favourite bird; it also occasionally utters its pleasing song while perched on the branches of the trees.