Birds and Birding's Guide to:

Watching THE SPARROW-LIKE BIRDS

THE FALSE SONG BIRDS

THE SCRUB-BIRDS

(Family Atrichornithidce)
Apparently quite closely related to the Lyre-birds are two curious, not to say anomalous, little birds of the dense Australian scrubs or brush-wood forests, known appropriately as Scrub-birds (Atrichornis). Aside from their diminutive size as compared with their larger relatives,-being only between seven and nine inches long,-they differ structurally in possessing rudimentary furcula, a sternum with a single very deep, instead of a slight, lateral indentation and tail-feathers of normal shape and ordinary texture. They have a relatively large bill and very strong legs and feet, while the wings are exceedingly diminutive, and the tail long, broad, and somewhat graduated. In coloration the plumage is plain, being dark chocolate or rufous brown above, barred and waved with blackish. Although these birds seem to be tolerably common in certain localities, and the males are not infrequently taken, it appears that the females are unknown to science, and it is only within the past eight or ten years that the nests and eggs have been detected.
The larger of the two species known as the Noisy Scrub-bird (A. clamosa), occurs in the western and southwestern parts of Australia, and is further distinguished by having the throat and breast white, with a patch of blackish on the lower throat and fore neck. It frequents the dense, almost impenetrable thickets of undergrowth in scattered pairs or individuals, and is so exceedingly shy that one may spend days in its midst without so much as catching a glimpse of it. It takes its vernacular name from its very peculiar loud note, which Mr. Campbell says is”a kind of sharp whistle repeated eight or nine times rapidly, with crescendo, concluding in a sharp crack that makes the woods resound.”The first and apparently only nest yet discovered was found by Mr. A. T. Hassell near Albany, in October, 1897, and was a dome-shaped structure, placed on the ground and composed of grass and rootlets with a few leaves, and lined with a white, downy substance; the two eggs were reddish white with purplish brown markings.
The Rufous Scrub-bird (A. rufescens), which is separated from the other by its small size and orange-rufous under parts, is found in the Richmond and Clarence districts of New South Wales, where, like its relative, it occurs among logs and fallen trees overgrown with weeds, vines, nettles, etc., and is exceedingly shy. It is a great mimic as well as an accomplished ventriloquist, imitating the notes of a dozen other birds until it is impossible to tell what its own notes are.”I have frequently stood on a log,”says Dr. Ramsay,”waiting for it to show itself from among the tangled mass of vines and weeds at my feet, when, all of a sudden, it would begin to squeak and imitate first one bird and then another, now throwing its voice over my head, then on one side, and then apparently from the log on which I was standing. This it will continue to do for hours together, and you may remain all day without catching sight of it.”The nest of this bird was not found until 1898, and proved to be dome-shaped, with an entrance on the side, like that of the larger species, the two eggs which it contained being pinkish white, with a cluster of reddish brown spots at the apex and scattered spots of the same over the surface.

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