EOPSALTRIA. 



183 



The nest is a round cup-shaped structure, outwardly formed of strips of bark and grasses, 

 and lined inside with fibrous roots or the narrow thread-like leaves of the Casuanna, and has 

 generally two or three dried Eucalyptus leaves placed at the bottom. The rim and outside is 

 ornamented with pieces of lichen, and long pieces of bark attached by means of cobwebs hang 

 perpendicularly round it like a heavy fringe. Some nests have only a few scales of bark on 

 the outside and are more highly decorated with lichens. An average nest measures externally 

 three inches in diameter by a depth of two inches and a half, and is built on a horizontal 

 branch or in the upright fork of a low tree. Near Sydney, tea-trees, gums, turpentines, and 

 honeysuckles are more often resorted to as nesting-sites, and sometimes it is placed on the 

 top of a large seed-cone of the latter tree. 1 have also seen it built against the bare upright 

 stem of a Lantana bush, supported by a thin twig. About parks and gardens they may be 

 found almost in any tree, but a favourite situation is on the top of the midrib of the broad leaf of 

 the Norfolk Island Pine (Amucaria exceha), and often on one overhanging a well frequented 

 path. The nests are usually built from five to fifteen feet from the ground, but if repeatedly 

 taken, I have known them to be placed on the horizontal branch of a Eucalyptus, or near the 

 top of a Svncarpia. at an altitude of fully thirty feet. In localities unfrequented by bird-nesting 



buys, I have generally found 

 them within hand's reach, 

 and in one instance in a 

 stunted gum-sapling within 

 eighteen inches of the ground. 



The eggs are usually three, 

 sometimes two, and occasion- 

 ally four in number for a 

 sitting, and vary considerably 

 in colour and disposition of 

 their markings. Typically 

 they are oval or rounded- 

 oval in form, the shell being 

 close-grained, smooth, and 

 lustrous. The ground colour 

 varies from pale apple-green 

 to greenish-blue, some speci- 

 mens being more or less 

 distinctly tinged with olive, 

 and which is usually freckled, 

 spotted, or blotched with reddish or chestnut-brown, intermingled with a few underlying 

 markings of paler tints. Some are distinctly and evenly marked over the shell, others have a 

 well defined cap or zone on the larger end, formed of confluent blotches, and but sparingly 

 marked on the remainder of its surface. Occasionally the ground colour is almost obscured 

 with indistinct fine fleecy markings of dull reddish or yellowish-brown, like some varieties of 

 the eggs oi Lalage tyicolov : and one set, taken by me on the nth August, 1889, at Ashfield, 

 has broad and distinct dull reddish -brown bands on the larger ends, the pale apple-green 

 ground colour (except on the smaller ends) also being suff'used with this colour. A set of four, 

 taken at Canterbury, near Sydney, on the 18th September, 1896, measures:— (A) 0-92 x o-66 

 inches; (B) o'93 x o-66 inches; (C) 0-9x67 inches; (D) 0-92 x 0-67 inches. A set of three 

 from Roseville, on the 19th October, 1901, measures:— (A) 0-83 x 0-63 inches; (B) 0-82 x 0-65 

 inches; (C) o-8 x o-66 inches. A set of two, taken by me at Gerringong on the 13th October, 

 1889, measures:— (A) 074 x 0-63 inches; (B) o-8 x 0-64 inches. 



NEST AND EGGS OF YELLOW-UREASTED ROIJIN. 



