114 CAMPOPHAGID.E. 



the possibility of making a thorough search for their nests at any distance from the roads or 

 tracks made by the timber-getters. 



The food of this species consists of insects and their larvae. 



During the latter end of September, 1882, Mr. C. C. L. Talbot observed a pair of these 

 birds building their nest in the angle of a forked horizontal branch of an ironbark, about forty 

 feet from the ground, on Collaroy Station, Broad Sound, five hundred and fifty-six miles 

 north of Brisbane. From this nest, a week after, Mr. Talbot secured a single egg, the first 

 I had seen, and the only occasion I had known of its being taken. Subsequently Mr. G. E. 

 Shepherd found several nests at Mornington, \ictoria, each of which contained a single 

 egg, the normal sitting. These nests were built in either a Eucalyptus, Casuarina, or Banksia. 

 In every instance the females sat very close, and one almost allowed him to touch her 

 before she left the nest. Mr. Shepherd forwarded me a nest and egg of E. tenuirosire, together 

 with the following note: — " I have taken the nest and egg of one pair of birds on four occasions. 

 The first I took on the i8th December, 1896; the second on the 27th December; the third on 

 the 8th January, 1897; and the fourth on the 19th of the same month; so you will see what 

 persistent breeders they are. The only sound 1 have heard the female utter is a cluck-like 

 note when I have frightened her off the nest." 



From the Upper Clarence River, Mr. George Savidge writes as follows: — "Jardine's 

 Caterpillar-eater usually arrives in this locality about the middle of October. There are now 

 four pairs of these birds calling within hearing of my house. Each pair have a certain domain 

 of their own, and during the breeding season resent the intrusion of any other species, attacking 

 even Magpies and Laughing Jackasses, until they drive them from the neighbourhood. It is 

 entirely owing to this pugnacious character that I have been able to locate the proximity of 

 their nests, but even then they are extremely difficult to discover on account of their diminutive 

 size. When not engaged in fighting or chasing other birds, the male generally flies off to a 

 great distance before one gets near the tree in which the nest is built, the female in the mean- 

 time slipping quietly off and stealing away unobserved. At other times the female sits perfectly 

 upright on the nest and will not leave it until one is half-way up the tree. I robbed the nests 

 of a pair of these birds three times during January and February, 1899, first of a young one 

 and subsequently on two occasions of a single egg. The female does not lay again in the same 

 nest after being robbed, but the birds generally build in a tree near at hand, the nest being 

 completed and the egg deposited within ten or twelve days. They build in any rough-barked 

 tree; I have found their nests in Bloodwoods, Ironbarks, Stringybarks, Oaks, Apple-trees 

 (Angophora subvelutiva), and the Xati\'e Quince ( Petalostigma quadriloculare ), at heights varying 

 from twelve to forty feet from the ground. I have taken twelve nests, with an egg in each, 

 and found seven with young. Nidification, in which both sexes take part, commences early in 

 November, and the breeding season continues until the end of February." 



I observed these birds for the first time in the vicinity of Sydney, at Roseville on the 28th 

 October, 1900; arriving again on the same date in the following year. The male of a pair 

 which have each season tenanted the trees opposite my house, used to commence calling as 

 early as 5 a.m., and at prolonged intervals kept it up for two hours. Seldom did I hear it call 

 throughout the day. The male, in addition to its frog-like note, utters a low chirrup and a 

 sweet clear note like that of Artamus superciliosus. Although the male is usually pugnacious, he 

 sometimes meets his match. On the 23rd December, 1900, I saw one chasing a Yellow-tufted 

 Honey-eater backwards and forwards through the trees. Suddenly the pursuer became the 

 pursued, and finally left the Honey-eater in possession of the field. A nest of this species, 

 found at Roseville, on the 30th November, 1901, was built in a forked horizontal branch of a 

 Forest-oak (Casuarina sttberosaj, at a height of thirty feet from the ground, and contained a 



