ORIOLUS. 



77 



others have the ground colour tinged with buff, or are of a uniform cream colour. The most 

 common type are of a pale creamy or brownish-white ground colour, which is uniformly and 

 minutely dotted, spotted, and irregularly blotched with different shades of umber intermingled 

 with similar underlying markings of deep bluish-grey, in some specimens the latter colour 

 approaching almost a pale inky-purple hue, while in others the subsurface markings are 

 entirely absent. As a rule the markings are irregularly shaped, bold, and evenly distributed 

 over the shell, but not infrequently they predominate on the larger end, where an irregular 

 zone or cap is formed. Specimens are sometimes found with the markings only slightly darker 

 than the ground colour, or having them very small but well defined. A set of three measures 

 as follows:— (-\) 1-38 x o-g8 inches; (B) i-4xo-i inches; (C) 1-37 x o'g6 inches. .\ set of two 

 measures: — (A) 1-33 x o-g4 inches; (B) 1-32 x 0-95 inches. An elongate set of three measures: — 

 (A) 1-5 xo-g inches; (I!) 1-51 x o-g inches ; (C) i-4()XO-g2 inches. 



Young birds are greyish-brown above, slightly washed with oli\e ; crown of the head and 

 hind-neck streaked with black; feathers of the upper back with a central or subterminal streak 

 of black, and have pale buffv-brown margins; the upper tail cox'erts with a subterminal spot 

 of black, and narrowly edged with oli\e at the tip; quills and upper wing-coverts brown, 

 the primaries and secondaries externally edged and tipped with pale rufous, the greater and 

 median wing-coverts broadly margined and tipped with the same co'our; tail greyish-brown, 

 with ashy-white edges to all the feathers, the wliite spots at the tips of all but the two central 

 feathers extending in a line along either web; sides of the head and neck greyish-brown washed 

 with olive; throat and fore-neck greyish-white with blackish streaks to all the feathers; 

 remainder of the under surface with a blackish -brown streak on the feathers of the chest, 

 and a tear-shaped marking on those of the breast and sides of the abdomen. In a slightly 

 older bird there is a distinct olive- white eyebrow; the upper parts are more strongly washed 

 with olive, and the crown of the head and the hack is distinctly streaked with black ; the 

 tail-feathers have lost their whitish edges, and the white spots at the tips of all but the two 

 central feathers are smaller; the median and greater wing-coverts are broadly margined with 

 pale rufous, and the primaries and secondaries are externally edged with pale buffy-whitc, and 

 narrowly tipped with white. Wmg measurement the same as that of the adult bird, (> inches. 



In the neighbourhood of Sydney, nidification begins about the latter end of September, 

 and lasts ten or twelve days, the eggs being usually deposited by the end of the second week 

 in October. .Vt Lithgow, on the Blue Mountains, 3,000 feet above the sea-level, ^Nlr. K. C.rant 

 also found new nests ready for the reception of eggs early in October. Nests, however, with 

 fresh eggs are more often obtained during the latter end of that month or early in November, 

 and the breeding season continues until the end of January. These birds are persistent 

 breeders, and will build again in the same locality after being repeatedly robbed. A nest 

 containing two eggs was taken at Chatswood, near Sydney, from a Turpentine-tree (Syncarpia 

 laurifolia), on the 22nd October, i8gS. Three eggs were taken from a nest belonging to the 

 same pair of birds on the 8th November, and a few days after the birds were busy constructing 

 a third nest in a tree in the same locality. 



Gould separated a smaller race of these birds from Northern Australia under the name of 

 Oviolus affinis. That some of the specific characters of Oriohis sa/ritfatus are influenced by its 

 geographical distribution is apparent wlien one compares a large series of these birds procured 

 in diiferent latitudes. 1-or, the further north the specimens are obtained, it will be found 

 that they are slightly smaller in size, the bill is larger, the white terminal marking on the inner 

 web of the outer tail-feathers is smaller, and the narrow white tip to the outer web is entirely 

 lost, .\dult males from Cairns and Cooktown, in North-eastern Queensland, are almost 

 intermediate in size between the two forms, O. sagittahis and 0. affinis, measuring in total 

 length 10 inches, wing 5-g, bill 1-15, extent of the white terminal marking on the inner web of 



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