The nest is composed of grasses, rather large and dome-shaped, with a hole near the top for an entrance. The one sent me from South Australia contained two eggs, one of which was the Bronze Cuckoo’s, thus showing that this little bird is also the foster-parent of those birds. The number of eggs laid by the _Malurus leucopterus_ is in all probability four; the one I possess is flesh-white, finely freckled with reddish brown, forming a zone at the larger end, and is eight lines long by six lines broad. The male has the whole of the head, body above and beneath, and the tail beautiful deep blue; scapularies, wing-coverts and tertiaries snow-white; primaries brown, with their external edges silvery green; bill black; feet brown; eyes dark brown. The female has the crown of the head, and all the upper surface and flanks brown; throat and abdomen white, faintly washed with brown; external edges of the primaries and tail pale greenish blue; bill reddish brown. The Plate represents the male and female of the natural size; the Plant is the _Brunonia Australis_. [Illustration: MALURUS MELANOCEPHALUS: _Vig. & Horsf._ _J. & E. Gould del^t._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] MALURUS MELANOCEPHALUS, _Vig. & Horsf._ Black-headed Wren. _Scarlet-lacked Warbler_, Lewin, Birds of New Holl., pl. xiv. _Malurus melanocephalus_, Vig. & Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 222. _Malurus Brownii_, Jard. and Selb. Ill. Orn., vol. ii. pl. 72. fig. 1. In their “Illustrations of Ornithology,” Sir William Jardine and Mr. Selby have in a very laudable manner endeavoured to clear up what they considered some confusion respecting the present and the preceding species, _M. Brownii_. These gentlemen have, however, fallen into error in considering the two birds as identical, whereas they are, in fact, totally distinct. I have never seen the Black-headed Wren from any other locality than New South Wales, and I am consequently led to believe that the south-eastern portion of Australia is its peculiar and limited habitat. It is a local species, not being generally diffused over the face of the country, like several other members of the group, but confined to grassy ravines and gullies, particularly those that lead down from the mountain ranges. I obtained several pairs of adult birds in very fine plumage in the valleys under the Liverpool range, all of which I discovered among the high grasses which there abound; but as the period of my visit was that of their breeding-season, I never observed more than a pair together, each pair being always stationed at some distance from the other, and in such parts of the gullies as were studded with small clumps of scrubby trees.