Like many other insectivorous birds in Australia, it seldom, if ever, resorts to the water for the purpose of drinking. It has a sharp piercing cry, which is frequently uttered, especially if the tree upon which it is climbing be approached.
The breeding-season commences in August and continues until January. The nest is generally placed deep down in a hollow branch, and those I found were entirely composed of the hair of the Opossum, and, judging from its brightness and freshness, had doubtless been plucked from the living animal while reposing in the hollow trees. The eggs in all the nests I took were two in number, of a reddish flesh-colour, thickly blotched all over with reddish brown; they are ten and a half lines long by eight lines broad.
The male has the crown of the head blackish brown; lores black; line over the eye and the throat dull buff; at the base of the throat a few indistinct blackish brown spots; all the upper surface rufous brown; 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; tail brown, all but the two centre feathers crossed by a broad band of blackish brown; all the under surface greyish brown, each feather of the chest and abdomen having a stripe of dull white, bounded on either side with black, running down the centre; under tail-coverts reddish buff, crossed by irregular bars of black; irides, bill and feet blackish brown.
Little difference is observable either in the colour or size of the sexes; the female may, nevertheless, be at once distinguished from her mate by the spots at the base of the throat being rufous instead of blackish brown as in the male.
The figures are those of a male and a female of the natural size.
CLIMACTERIS RUFA: Gould.
J. & E. Gould del et lith. C. Hullmandel Imp.
CLIMACTERIS RUFA, Gould.
Rufous Tree-Creeper.
Climacteris rufa, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part VIII. p. 149.
Jin-nee, Aborigines of the mountain districts of Western Australia.