382 NESrS A.VV EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN HIRDS. 



Ohservations. — As Gould remarks, the Warty-faced Honeyeater is 

 not only one of the most handsome of oiu- Honeyeaters, but one of the 

 most beautiful of Australian birds. On account of the beauty of its 

 black and golden plumage, it has been called the " Mock Regent Bird " 

 in some localities. The head, throat, and chest ai-e black, the rest of 

 the pliunage in general being beautifully mottled with black and pure 

 yellow. There is a patcli of small warty excrescences on either side of 

 the face, hence the distinguishing name, Warty-faced Honeyeater. Tlie 

 bird is 81 inches long. 



The peculiar plaintive song, accompanied with the bowing of the head, 

 of the Warty-faced Honeyeater is very agreeable. The bird may be 

 called an interior species, with a habitat ranging from Queensland down 

 to South Australia, and although Gould regarded it as a stationary 

 species, it occasionally, according to seasons, or the supply of the 

 eucalyptus blossom, wanders towards the coast. I recollect one season 

 in November — 1868 or 1869 — when these birds were plentiful in the 

 neighbourhood of Oakleigh and Murrumbeena, where we secui-ed as 

 many of their beautifully constmcted bark-made nests, and lovely rich 

 salmon-coloured eggs, as we needed. Again, in October, 1882, in the 

 Bendigo district, I observed them breeding. 



Diu-ing the great drought in the interior — 1896-7 — the Warty-faced 

 Honeyeaters were numerous in Victoria, and were noticed in localities 

 whei"e they had never previously been seen. 



Gould somewhat qualifies his statement about the Warty-faced 

 Honeyeater being a stationai-y species by remarldng, " I have occasion- 

 ally seen flocks of fi-om fifty to a hundred in number passing from tree to 

 tree as if engaged in a partial migration from one part of the countiy to 

 another or in search of a more abundant supply of food." 



I myself witnessed tliis once at Donca.ster, Victoria, 2nd Novem- 

 ber, 1886, when a flock of about fifty swept past me across a valley.* 



Mr. Hermann Lau writes : " Mock Regent Bird. — I first saw it at 

 Goulbuni, New South Wales, 1855; then again at Pike's Creek. 

 Queensland, twenty miles south-west of Warroo. It only appears in 

 numbers now and again. The site of its big nest is at about the height 

 of twentv feet in a tree, and always near a thick stem or a few sprouting 

 shoots. It i> roughly made of coai-se, dry gi-ass, lined with rootlets and 

 animal hair. Deposits two or three eggs. Took nest, Pike's Creek, 

 October, 1869." 



Breeding month, end of September to December. 



•One of Mr. C. C. Brittlebank's notes reads: " ist April. i8g6. Flocks of 

 Warty-faced Honey-eaters, thirty or forty birds in each, passed to the west about 

 9 a.m." 



