PETKCECA. 165 



bark, and ornamented with bits of lichen to imitate the bark of the tree, the inside being 

 thickly fitted with hair and fur. The female sat very close. On tiie 21st November, I found 

 another nest of this species with three fresh eggs. It was built against the bole of a tea-tree, 

 and supported by a projecting twig, at a height of fifteen feet from the ground. I saw a 

 pair building on the loth September, 1890, in a tea-tree sapling, ten feet up. in an upright 

 fork." 



The eggs are usually three, sometimes four in number for a sitting, and are oval or 

 rounded oval in form, the shell being close-grained and its surface dull and lustreless. The 

 ground colour varies from a pale green or bluish-white to dull brownish-white, some specimens 

 being thickly freckled, spotted and blotched with wood-brown, olive-brown, and underlying 

 markings of purplish-grey, almost obscuring the ground colour; others are sparingly but 

 distinctly dotted or spotted with purplish-brown or lilac-grey, the latter appearing as if beneath 

 the surface of the shell. Sometimes the markings predominate on the thicker end or around 

 the centre of the shell, but specimens may be also found which liave the markings evenly 

 distributed over the surface or entirely confined to one end. A set of three, taken by me at 

 Middle Harbour on the 2nd September, igoi, is the only instance I have known of this bird 

 breeding near Sydney. The eggs are of a faint greyish-blue ground colour, minutely freckled 

 with pale brown, except on tiie thicker end where these markings are interniin.i.;led with others 

 of blackish-brown, and underlying spots of violet-grey forming more or less well defined zones. 

 Length (.-\) 075 X 0-55 inches; (B) 0-74 x 0-54 inches; (C) 074 x 0-56 inches. A set of three, 

 taken at Circular Head. Tasmania, on the nth November, 1886, measures: — Length (.V) 

 075x0-55 inches; (B) 076x0-58 inches; (0)0-73x0-57 inches. Like all eggs with semi- 

 transparent shells, even when fresh, the eggs of this genus are more beautiful directly after 

 they have been emptied of their contents. 



In three adult males in the .Vustralian Museum collection, the white feathers bordering 

 the upper part of the frontal band are tipped with light scarlet. A semi-albino adult male 

 has the primaries, secondaries, upper tail-coverts and tail white, the quills and tail-feathers 

 having blackish shafts. 



.\ugust and the four following months constitute the usual breeding season of this species 

 in Eastern Australia and Tasmania, but Dr. .\. M. Morgan informs me that he found a nest 

 in the Mount Lofty Ranges, near Adelaide, with a fresh egg in it about the middle of June. 

 Nests with eggs are more frequently found on the Blue Mountains towards the latter end of 

 September or early in October, but in South Gippsland I have found them at the end of 

 November. 



Petrceca phoenicea. 



FLAME-BREASTED ROBIN. 



Petroica phmnicea, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soo., 183G, p. 10.5; id., Bds. Austr., fol.. Vol. III., pi. 6 

 (18-48); id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. L, p. 282 (186.5). 



Petrceca phcenicea, Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. IV., p. 1(36 (1879). 



Adult male — General colour above greyish-black : uj^per iving-coverts and quills slightly darker, 

 the inner median, and greater ivlng-coverts, and the outer webs of the inner secondaries white; an 

 oblong spot near the centre of the outer lOribs of the primaries aiid a bar across the secondaries near 

 the base white; tail blackish, the outermost feather white, margined icith blackish-brown on the inner 

 web and towards the tip of the outer web, the next feather externally edged with rvhite on the obiter 

 web; on the forehead a small white spot; lores, feathers in front, and below the eye blackish; sides 

 of the face, ear-coverts, and chin blackish-grey ; remainder of the under surface orange-scarlet; lotver 



