Is^EST OF PETRCECA LEGGII — NORTH. 89 



Note on a NEST of PETRCECA LEGGII, Sharps. 

 The Scarlet-breasted Robin. 



By Alfred J, North, F.L.S. 

 (Ornithologist to the Australian Museum.) 



[Plate XX.] 



Mr. Joseph Gabriel, F.L S., one of the most enthusiastic members 

 of the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, has recently forwarded 

 me a beautiful nest of the Scarlet-breasted Robin, built in a very 

 well concealed situation. The nest was found by Mr. Gabriel at 

 Bayswater, Victoria, on the 15th Novr., 1894, and is formed in a 

 small cavity burnt out of the thin stem of a " Mountain Musk," 

 Olearia argophylla, at an elevation of about six feet from the 

 ground. The dimensions of this hollow in the stem of the tree, 

 from its base to where it narrows at the top, were six inches 

 and a half in height by three inches and a half in width on one 

 side, and four inches and a half by three inches and a half on the 

 other ; and in this snug recess the nest is ensconced. It is com- 

 posed of very fine strips of the inner bark of a Eucalypt, inter- 

 mingled with the soft downy covering of the freshly budded 

 fronds of a tree fern, and thickly and warmly lined inside with 

 opossum fur ; the rim and one side of the nest are ornamented 

 with cobwebs collected from a burnt tree and to which still 

 adhere small fragments of charred wood, making the nest assimi- 

 late closely to its surroundings. On one side of the cavity only 

 a small portion of the rim of the nest is visible. The figure on 

 the plate represents the nest as seen from above and looking into 

 it: as viewed laterally very little of it is discernible. Eventually 

 the nest, which has been presented to the Trustees, and contains 

 three eggs of the usual type, will be mounted and placed in the 

 Group Collection illustrating the life-hi3tory of our Australian 

 birds. 



The situation of the nest of this species is varied ; sometimes 

 it is boldly placed on a horizontal branch or in the forked limb 

 of a low tree, but at all times the exterior portion of the nest is 

 made to closely resemble its environment. In South Gippsland 

 I have frequently found the nest of this Robin by tapping on the 

 hollow trunk of some burnt out giant of the forest, or by watching 

 the bird fly into one of the apertures made by fire in the bole of 

 a large tree. 



