220 MUSCICAPID.E. 



from the nest. Msiting it on the rst October, seven weeks after it was first commenced, I was 

 surprised to flush the female from it, who was sitting on four partially incubated eggs. After 

 photographing the nest on the following day, the female returned to her eggs as soon as I 

 removed the camera. These birds will often desert their nests if touched, and sometimes if even 

 approached during construction. A pair from whose nest I took four fresh eggs on the 27th 

 September, igoo, at Roseville, I found again with a half built nest on the 14th October, in some 

 long grass under the fallen dead branches of a pear-tree, by watching the female carry material 

 to it. Although eventually nearly completed, the birds deserted it and constructed another nest 

 and reared their young in some low ferns, about one hundred yards away. In all nests I ha\e 

 found, the eggs or young were more or less exposed to view, but two which had frail hoods 

 partially concealing the entrance. 



A nest I found near Roseville on the ist September, igoi, and from which I flushed the 

 female when within five yards of it contained a single fresh egg. As usual the entrance to the 

 nest was large, and I could see the egg lying inside at the bottom of the structure, which I was 

 careful not to touch. On visiting the place a week later, I saw the male and female in the 

 scrub about thirty yards from the nest. Arriving at the nest I was surprised to find it empty, 

 and two perfect eggs at some distance apart lying beneath it on a thick carpeting of dead 

 eucalyptus leaves. Carefully removing the latter one by one I found a third egg, and after 

 some time a fourth, all of them being perfect, fresh, and icy cold. Whether the birds had 

 ejected the eggs themselves through my visiting it, or whether they had been thrown out by a 

 Cuckoo, I can only conjecture, but if by the latter one would have expected to find an egg of 

 the intruder in the nest, which was in a perfectly uprif,'ht position. 



.\t Middle Harbour, on the gth September, igoi, I observed a female in low scrub 

 tearing off" small strips of bark and bark-fibre from a tea-tree, the male hopping about in a tree 

 close at hand. This she repeated several times until I located the nest she was engaged in 

 building in some long grass at the foot of a Banksia, about twelve yards away. I gradually 

 moved until I got within a yard of the structure, the female still carrying material but now 

 small dead eucalyptus leaves, apparently unconcerned at my presence. Now and again she 

 would run up to the top of a shrub, watch me for a minute or two and tiien fly away, returning 

 shortly after with a leaf or portion of one. Meanwhile the beautiful full plumaged male kept 

 hopping about the bushes near at hand, sometimes close to me at other times accompanying 

 the female, but never assisting in carrying material nor did he once go near the nest 

 during my stay there. On visiting the nest on the 20th September, I found it completed and 

 containing two fresh eggs, which were visible at the bottom of the nest. Two days later I 

 flushed the female from it, and found in addition to the eggs of Lambert's Superb Warbler, an 

 egg of the Fan-tailed Cuckoo which almost filled up with the other eggs the lower cavity of 

 the nest. This is the only instance I have known of the egg of Cacomantis flabcUifovmis being 

 deposited in the nest of this species. Subsequently Dr. Kamsay, to whom I showed this set, 

 informed me that he had only on one occasion found the nest of Lambert's Superb \\'arl)ler, 

 which contained two fresh eggs, this was on the i6th September, i860, and that he had 

 never known or heard of the egg of any species of Cuckoo being found in the nest of 

 Malurus livnhcrti. 



.'\t Roseville, on the i6th October, igoi, 1 found a nest built in some grass about two feet 

 high growing under a dead pear tree. I had the owners of it under almost daily observation 

 for over twelve months, and never at any time saw the male except in his fully adult and 

 distinguishing livery. Although these birds never left the orchard or the adjoining paddock, 

 like many other pairs of these birds I have had under observation when engaged in nest 

 building, they wandered all over their domain, and only on one occasion had I observed them 

 in the \icinity of where I found their nest. This nest had the entrance slightly more protected 



