EDOLIISO.MA. 



115 



heavily incubated esrg, but which I managed successfully to empty of its contents. These birds 

 leave the district again about the middle of January. 



The nest, a small open shallow structure, is fitted into the angle of a forked horizontal 

 branch, and is constructed throughout of lichens intermingled with short pieces of very thin 

 plant stems or the thread-like leaves of the Casiiarina, and held together with spiders' web; the 

 rim of the nest, which stands slightly above the branch, being thickly coated with lichens, and 

 the saucer-like cavity lined entirely with fine dried plant stems or portions of Casitarina leaves. 

 In three nests now before me, one built in a Bloodwood has the rim nearly level with the thick 

 forked branch in which it is fitted: another, in a Native Quince, has a few pieces of green moss 

 worked into it, and the rim slightly raised above the branch; and the third, in a bent fork, has 

 one side of the nest built up level to a height of one inch and a quarter. An average nest 

 measures externally three inches and a quarter in diameter; internally two inches; depth half 

 an inch. Only one egg is laid for a sitting; they vary in form from oval to ellipse and elongate- 

 oval, and in ground colour from very pale bluish and greenish-grey to green. The variety 

 most frequently found has irregular-shaped spots and dots of different shades of umber and 



slaty-brown, uniformly dis- 

 ;' , tributed over the surface of 



the shell, and intermingled 

 with underlying spots and 

 blotches of slaty-grey. In 

 the colour and disposition 

 of its markings this variety 

 resembles the egg of Sittella 

 thrysoptcra, but is nearly 

 twice the size. Some speci- 

 mens have the markings 



^>>"' 





much darker, and an irregu- 

 lar zone on the thicker end. 

 Atypical egg measures i'2i 

 X 0-87 inches; an elongate 

 i specimen 1-3 X 0-85 inches. 



A rare variety, obtained by 



NEST AND EGG OF JARDINE's CATERPILLAR EATER. j^jj._ Qqqxctq Savidce, and 



now in the collection of ^Ir. Joseph Gabriel, is like a miniature Crow's egg. It is oval in 

 form, and of a dull green ground colour, w^iich is uniformly spotted and dotted with different 

 shades of yellowish and blackish-brown, except on the larger end, where the ground colour 

 is almost obscured by a broad clouded band of dull yellowish-brown. Length: — i-24xo-85 

 inches. This egg is represented on Plate B. III., Figure U. Figure 13 is from Mr. George 

 Savidge's collection. An egg, taken at Roseville, on the 30th November, 1901, measures: — 

 Length 1-23 x 0-84 inches. 



A nestling, taken by Mr. Savidge, has the feathers of the upper parts brown, slightly 

 darker on the head, and all largely tipped with white; wings dark brown, the secondaries 

 broadly edged with light rufous; tail-feathers buff, with blackish cross-bars; all the under 

 surface dull white, the feathers of the chest and breast with a blackish shaft-line terminating 

 in a tear-shaped spot near the tip; bill fleshy-brown; legs and feet pale fleshy -brown. Total 

 length 4-7 inches, wing 2-2^. 



The nest and egg figured above were taken by Mr. Savidge at Copmanhurst, on the Upper 

 C'arence River, on the 8th January, 1899. 



