COLLYRIOCINCLA. ^^ 



The food of this species consists chietiy of \arious kinds of insects and their larvae, also 

 worms, snails, centipedes, and small lizards. Writm- from Eden, Twofold Bay, in August, 

 1901, Mr. J. A. Boyd informs me that one of these birds sits and whistles on his back verandah 

 until'he goes out and gives it some scrap of food from the safe; a bit of cheese being a great 

 dainty. It is so tame that it will ahnost eat out of his hand. 



The nest is a round bowl-shaped structure, outwardly formed of strips of bark and lined 

 inside with fibrous roots, and varies considerably in size according to the position in which it 

 is built Some I have seen consisted principally of a root-lined cavity, just sufficient to 

 accommodate the bird while sitting; others, built in the thin forked branches of trees, had the 

 outer walls very thick, and the rim neatly rounded. One I found at Newington, built in a 

 Mdakuca had a strip of blue serge two inches wide and twentv inches l.jng. utilised in its outer 

 construction, the material being thoroughly interwoven in the nest and securely bound around 

 two of the branches. When built in hollow limbs, the same site is frequently resorted to year 

 after year, but usuallv a new nest is formed on the top of the old ...ne. .Vn average nest 

 measures five inches and a half in external diameter by four inches and a half in depth; 

 internally three inches and three quarters in diameter by two inches and a half in depth. The 

 site for the nest is a varied one. Preference, however, is given for the hollows m the tops of 

 stumps burnt out cavities m limbs, or the thick fork of a tree. It is also built in thin 

 pron-ed upright branches; between the top a piece of loose bark and the trunk of a tree, and 

 in th"e cleft of a bank or rock. The different species ol Eucalyptus and Melaleuca are the trees 

 usually selected as nesting sites, also the Turpentine (Syncarp.a lannfalia ), and the nests are 

 built at hei-hts varving from two to forty feet from the ground. Generally they are found 

 ^vithin hand^s reach, or not at an higher altitude than twelve feet. Curious nesting-sites are 

 sometimes selected by this species. For five years consecutively a pair built in an old iron pot 

 standing on a shelf m a carpenter's shop at CuUenbones and Dr. A. AI. Morgan found a 

 nest wi^h three fresh eggs at Port Augusta, South Australia, on the 14th August, 1900, built 

 on the top of an old nest of Pcnatoylnuus supeniliosus. At Strathfield, near Sydney, a nest was 

 constructed against a creeper-covered wall of a house. 



The eggs, usuallv three, sometimes only two, and rarely four in number for a sitting, are 

 subject to considerable variation in shape, size, and disposition of markings. They vary from 

 oval to thick and elongate oval in form, the shell being close-grained, and its surface lustrous, 

 and in "round colour from pearly to buffy-white, which is usually evenly marked with 

 freckles spots, and blotches of olive-brown, brownish-black, and underlying markings of slaty 

 or deep bluish-^rey. Others have a zone or cap only on the larger end formed of large 

 confluent spots and blotches, while a not uncommon variety is finely freckled over the entire 

 surface of the shell. Some have the ground colour on the larger end almost obscured with 

 coalesced black and slaty-black markings. A set of three, taken at Canterbury, near Sydney, 

 on the 17th September, 1897, measures as follows :-Length (A) f2i x 0-87 inches; (B) i-2 x o-86 

 inches- (C) 1-2 X 0-85 inches. Another set, taken in the same locality, on the 20th September, 

 1897, measures:-(D) 1-3 x 0-9 inches; (E) 1-31 xo-88 inches; (F) 1-29 x 0-9 inches. 



Fled-elin-s have the upper parts greyish-brown; the back, scapulars, upper wing-coverts, 

 and secondaries distmctlv tinged with olive; upper wing-coverts externally edged with rufous; 

 feathers around the eye and a superciliary stripe pale rufous; throat, fore-neck, and chest dull 

 greyish-white, passing into pure white on the breast and abdomen, all the feathers having a 

 broad dusky-brown streak down the centre. Wing 4 inches. 



Dr W Macgillivray writes to me as follows :-"Co//jma«r/« haymomca frequently resorts 

 to the same cleft year after year to nest. I have known a brood to be reared for five consecutive 



» Cox and Ham.-Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., 2nd ser., Vol. iv., p. 406 (1S89). 



