A'i:STS A.VD EGGS Ob AUSIKALIAN BIROS. 



393 



tructivi' to liuit. and is especially fond of grapes. Mr. Nortli staU-s 

 it, is one of the most eoniniou species of the genus Plilotis, inhabiting 

 the pai-ks and gardens of Sydney. It is probably nowhere more 

 numerous than in Victoria, where it may bo heard (often at eai-ly morn) 

 by its happy, cliirrup-like song, near forest streams, or in scrub by 

 rivor margins. 



Tlie moss-bedecked nest and the typical red-mottled eggs of the 

 Yellow-faced Honeyeater are e.^cceechngly beautiful. Many I have 

 foiuid, noUibly at Lilydale and Upper Werribee. At the latter locality 

 I specially remember a very pretty nest situated in a channing spot. 

 It was suspended in an acacia busii, in blossom, that hung over a moss- 

 covered bank of a dry walercom-se in a silent and sheltered nook of an 

 ironbark forest. (Date, 11th October, 189U.) The lli-st nest of this 

 species I took was at Malvern, 1869. The eggs were the exceptional 

 type, more distinctly spotted, hke those of its Wliite-plumed cousin 

 (P. i)tiiicillata). The only other eggs I fovmd of tliis type were 

 obtained at Berwick, January, 1880. 



Gould found a nest near the Liverpool Ranges, which was so thinly 

 constructed that he could see tlu'ough it. Such examples I have 

 noticed myself, wlien the eggs could be seen from beneath. 



Mr. Hcnnann Lau's observations of the Yellow-faced Honeyeater 

 in Southern Queensland are that it is usually found in the sea^coast 

 scrubs, and places its nest in a small bush, four to six feet high. The 

 nest consists of dry grass outside, and feathers and rootlets for Uning ; 

 lays two eggs,- — Cunningham's Gap, October, 1876. 



The little Y'ellow-faced Honeyeater is not only lively and cheerful, 

 but is persevering, as the following observations of Mr. and Mrs. Dc 

 Lany attest. On the Wombat Creek, near Onieo, Victoria, a pair 

 built in a shapely bhvckwood (Acacia) in the garden. As the site was 

 rather near the fiiiit trees, the nest and eggs were taken, but next day 

 in the same tree a new nest was found nearly completed, both birds 

 working at it, and before the week was out it had eggs. Again the nest 

 was robbed, and so on for six times, each clutch being the full comple- 

 ment of three eggs. However, the seventh time (there is luck in odd 

 numbers, as the saying goes) the birds won by building a nest near the 

 ground in a low bush about ten paces distant from the blackwood tree, 

 which was not discovered till it contained young. 



Breeding months July to February. Mr. C. C. Brittlebank and 

 I observed birds building a nest on the bank of the Lerderberg River, 

 6th Fcbniaiy (1892). Mr. C. F. Belcher, in his pleasantly-wiitten 

 article in the " Wombat," " Notes on Birds of the Geelong district," 

 mentions a pair of eggs he took at Lake CounewaiTe as late as the 

 12lh February (1890). 



