C U LM A C T ER IS E R Y T H IR O P S : SaOA
CLIMACTERIS ERYTHROPS, Gould.
Red-eyebrowed Tree-Creeper.
Climacteris erythrops, Gould in Proc. of ZooL Soc., Part VIII. p. 148.
I o b t a i n e d this new and highly interesting species while encamped on the low grassy hills under the Liver
pool range: from the manner of its ascending the trees and keeping almost entirely to the small upright
stems of the Casuarina, I believed it to be the White-throated Tree-Creeper (Climacteris picumnus); but
having made it a rule to shoot an example of every species I observed in each newly-visited locality, I was
in this instance rewarded with the acquisition o f a new bird, which I afterwards found was numerous in
this part of the country. But whether it is generally distributed over the colony, or merely confined
to such districts as have a similar character to those in which I found it, I had no opportunity o f ascertaining.
So far as I could observe, its habits and manners bore a striking resemblance to those of
the Climacteris Picumnus.
One singular feature connected with this species, is the circumstance of the female alone being adorned
with the beautiful radiated rufous markings on the throat, the male having this part quite plain; this I
ascertained beyond a doubt by the dissection of numerous specimens o f both sexes; it is true that a faint
trace o f this character is observable both in Climacteris scandens and C. rufa, hut the present is the only
species of the genus in which this reversion o f a general law of nature is so strikingly apparent.
The male has the crown of the head blackish brown, each feather margined with greyish brown; lores
and a circle surrounding the eye reddish chestnut; back brown ; sides of the neck, lower part o f the back,
and upper tail-coverts grey; primaries blackish brown at the base and light brown at the tip, all but the
first crossed in the centre by a broad band of buff, to which succeeds another broad band of blackish brown;
two centre tail-feathers grey, the remainder blackish brown, largely tipped with light grey; chin dull white,
passing into greyish brown on the chest; the remainder of the under surface greyish brown, each feather
having a broad stripe of dull white, bounded on either side with black running down the centre, the lines
becoming blended, indistinct, and tinged with buff on the centre of the abdomen ; under tail-coverts bufly
white, crossed by irregular bars of black; irides brown; bill and feet black.
The female differs in having the chestnut marking round the eye much richer, and in having, in place of
the greyish brown on the breast, a series of feathers of a rusty red colour, with a broad stripe of dull white
down their middles, the stripes appearing to radiate from a common centre: in all other particulars her
plumage resembles that of the male.
The figures are those of a male and a female of the natural size.