The nest is formed of the inner bark of trees, intermingled with green moss, which soon vegetates; sometimes dried grasses and fibrous roots form part of the materials of which it is composed, and it is warmly lined with feathers. The eggs, which are three in number and much elongated in form, vary considerably in colour, the most constant tint being a clove-brown freckled over the larger end with dark umber brown, frequently assuming the form of a complete band or zone: their medium length is one inch, and their breadth eight lines. Lores, circle around the eye, and the ear-coverts deep black; a conspicuous line of yellowish white above and for some distance beyond the eye; crown of the head, and all the upper surface, secondaries, wing-coverts and tail reddish brown, becoming more rufous on the upper tail-coverts and tail; outer edges of the primaries olive; spurious wing blackish brown; throat yellow; chest and flanks olive-brown; centre of the abdomen white; bill brownish black; irides reddish brown; legs purplish flesh-colour, in some specimens flesh-white. The figures represent the two sexes of the natural size. [Illustration: SERICORNIS HUMILIS: _Gould_. _J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _Hullmandel & Walton Imp._ ] SERICORNIS HUMILIS, _Gould_. Sombre-coloured Sericornis. _Sericornis humilis_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 133; and in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IV. This species is very generally dispersed over Van Diemen’s Land, and as I have found it on some of the islands in Bass’s Straits, it is not improbable that it may also extend its range to the southern coast of the continent of Australia. Ravines, deep glens, water-courses covered with dense herbage and thickly wooded copses are the situations congenial to the habits of this bird; those that are most humid or damp being apparently preferred to any other; consequently, although it is very abundant and its distribution very general, it is a bird that is less seen, and one whose habits are less known than almost any other of the indigenous birds of the island. In many of its actions it closely resembles the Wren (_Troglodytes Europæus_), particularly in its manner of hopping about on the ground, and from stone to stone, with its tail erect in search of insects, upon which it solely subsists; it also assimilates to the Wren in the form, construction and situation of its nest; but in the number and colour of its eggs there is much difference. It rarely flies more than a few yards at a time, but secretes itself in the midst of the little thicket in which it has taken up its abode. There is little difficulty in finding the nest; for although it is in general very artfully concealed among the herbage at the base of a tree, on the edge of a shelving bank, or among the thick tangle of the scrub, yet by attentively watching the old birds for a short time, they will