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FROM FIELD AND STUDY feeding scrapes (see Dell, 1963, West. Aust. Nat. 8 p 186), on the northern Painted Button-quail on the Swan and south-western sides of the Park. Coastal Plain - The Painted Button- Bold Park is on the Spearwood and quail, Tumix varia is one of the 174 Quindalup Dune System on the naturally occurring bird species on western side of the Swan Coastal Plain the Swan Coastal Plain of which 83 and has a range of habitats. Painted have declined markedly since Button-quails have been regularly European settlement and the sighted including several breeding subsequent habitat destruction (How records. We have the following and Dell, 1993, pp 28-47 In: Urban records:- Bush Management. Aust. Inst, of Urban Studies). Storr and Johnstone (1988 • regularly recorded in all survey Rec. West. Aust. Mus. Suppl. 28, p 30) sites throughout the Park since considered it to be now scarce and 1988. They are more frequently restricted to heavier soils on the recorded in dune heath on the eastern side of the coastal plain and Quindalupsystemonthesouth- also in Tuart forest on the western western side of the Park than side. other sites but have also been Since 1986 we have been examining recorded in Banksia and Tuart woodland. vertebrate fauna on bushland remnants of the Swan Coastal Plain • a chick weighing 11 gm was between Wanneroo and Woodman recorded in pitfall trap in Tuart Point and eastwards to the Darling woodland on 21 January 1988. Scarp. In total we have examined 28 • two chicks weighing 20 gm were remnants and the bird lists for 10 recorded in pitfall trap in other localities. On only four locations have populations of the Calotharnnus heathland on the Quindalup Dune System on 24 Painted Button-quail been observed. December 1995. A male but no Talbot Road Reserve is located on the other chicks was crouched Ridge Hill Shelf in Swan View and is nearby. mostly Banksia or Jarrah woodland on Bassendean sands with a small area Dianella Bushland is in the central of Marri woodland on gravels and part of the coastal plain towards the clays. One Painted Button-quail was eastern edge of the Spearwood Dune flushed in Jarrah/ Banksia woodland System. Painted Button-quails were on 29 October 1993. recorded on several occasions in 1992 in Jarrah/ Banksia woodland. Kings Park is located in the central part of the coastal plain on Spearwood The Painted Button-quail appears to sands and has a variety of habitat be a resident breeding species in Bold types. We conducted intensive bird Park. Its status on the other sites in censuses here for three years, 1993— unclear. The fact that none were 1995. Painted Button-quails were not recorded in Kings Park in the first recorded until March 1995 when we two, of the three survey years suggests obtained a total of six records in two that this species may be transient or a different localities.They were present, nomad on some urban bushland together with their characteristic remnants. Painted Button-quails are 87 still regularly recorded in Jarrah forest listed in Storr and Johnstone (1988). and other habitats on the Darling -JOHN DELL and RIC HOW, West- Range.TheBoldParkbreedingrecords ern Australian Museum, Francis conform with the breeding season Street, Perth W.A. 6000. 88