EÖPSALTRIA LEUCOGASTER, Gould.
White-bellied Robin.
Eöpsaltria leucogaster, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., February 24, 1846.
The White-bellied Robin is a native of Western Australia, but is only to be met with in the hilly portions of the country. Mr. Gilbert states that the first specimen he procured was killed on the Darling range, near the gorge of the River Murray, at an elevation of about seven or eight hundred feet, and that he afterwards met with it on the southern extremity of the same range, between Vasse and Augusta, but that he never observed it on the lower grounds between the mountain range and the coast. Like the other species of the genus, it was constantly seen clinging to the bark of large upright trees, or straight and small stems, in search of its insect food. It is extremely quiet and secluded in its habits, is almost exclusively confined to the neighbourhood of small mountain streams, where scarcely any other sound is heard than the rippling and gurgling of the water over the rocks, and on the slightest approach it immediately secretes itself among the thick scrub or brushwood. Its song very closely resembles that of the Petroicæ.
Immediately before the eye a small triangular-shaped spot of black; above the eye a faint line of greyish white; crown of the head, all the upper surface, wings and tail dark slate-grey; the lateral tail-feathers largely tipped with white on their inner webs; all the under surface white; irides dark brown; bill and feet black.
The Plate represents the bird of the natural size, on one of the beautiful and rare plants of Western Australia, a species of Anigozanthus, the distinctive appellation of which I have not been able to ascertain.