The song is a hurried strain impossible to describe, but somewhat resembling that of the Wren of Europe, a bird to which the _Maluri_ also assimilate in many of their actions. The stomach is muscular, and the food consists of insects of various kinds, collected on the ground, the trunks of fallen trees, etc. The male in summer has the crown of the head, ear-coverts and a lunar-shaped mark on the upper part of the back light metallic blue; lores, line over the eye, occiput, scapularies, back, rump and upper tail-coverts velvety black; throat and chest bluish black, bounded below by a band of velvety black; tail deep blue, indistinctly barred with a darker hue and finely tipped with white; wings brown; under surface buffy white, tinged with blue on the flanks; irides blackish brown; bill black; feet brown. The female has the lores and a circle surrounding the eye reddish brown; upper surface, wings and tail brown; under surface brownish white; bill reddish brown; feet fleshy brown. The Plate represents two males and a female with the nest, the former engaged in feeding a young Cuckoo. [Illustration: MALURUS LONGICAUDUS: _Gould_. _J. & E. Gould del^t._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] MALURUS LONGICAUDUS, _Gould_. Long-tailed Wren. _Malurus longicaudus_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 148. This species offers so general a resemblance to the Superb Warbler (_M. cyaneus_), that some ornithologists may still be inclined to consider it identical with that species; there are, however, differences in their characters which I find to be constant, and which are, I think, of sufficient importance to justify their being separated. The examination of great numbers of specimens enables me to affirm that the present species has the blue markings much more intense, is superior in size, and has a much longer tail. If the larger birds had been inhabitants of a warmer climate, where insect food is more abundant, it would have permitted the supposition that temperature had had some influence in effecting this difference; but as exactly the reverse is the case, I have been strengthened in my opinion of their being distinct, and have accordingly given it a name; that of _longicaudus_ appearing to me the most appropriate, as at once distinguishing it from the _Malurus cyaneus_, in which that organ is much shorter. It is so universally dispersed over Van Diemen’s Land, as well as the islands in Bass’s Straits, that to particularize any one part of the former island where it is found more than another would be vain, since it is present in every gully, and every other place where low scrubby bushes and underwood are to be met with: I have also received a single specimen in its winter dress from Kangaroo Island, which I believe is referable to this species. Active and cheerful, and possessing a sweet warbling song, the present bird is as much a favourite in Van Diemen’s Land as the