FALC'UNCULUS. 37 



Museum collection obtained on Ash Island, at the mouth of the Hunter River, New South W'ales, 

 has these characters so pronounced that the usual intervening black band extending behind the 

 eye on to the sides of the neck is reduced to a narrow line of feathers. The wing-measurement 

 of adult males varies only from 3-6 to 3-8 inches, but there is a marked difference in the tail- 

 measurement which varies from 3 to 3^4 inches. The figure represents an adult male. 



The nests when newly built are exceedingly neat and beautiful structures. They vary in 

 form from a deep cup-shape to an inverted cone-siiape with a cup-like cavity at the top, and are 

 as a rule slightly contracted at the rim. Outwardly they are usually composed of very fine 

 yellowish-white inner bark of a Eucalyptus, and are lined inside with narrow strips of red 

 stringy-bark and fine grass stalks, the outer portion being more or less coated with the pale 

 greenish-grey lichen, Usnea barbata, over which is spread a moderately thick covering of pure 

 white web and egg-bags of spiders. An average cup-shape nest measures externally three 

 inches in diameter by three inches in depth, the inner cup measuring at the rim two inches, and 

 in depth two inches. The nest figured on Plate A 10, is of inverted cone form, and was taken at 

 Belmore on the 22nd September, i8g8. Of six nests now before me, two are of an inverted cone- 

 shape similar to the one figured, and four are of the deep cup-shape. They are built at or near 

 the junction of a two or more pronged thin leafy upright branch, the bark of which is bitten 

 away by the bird with its powerful bill, so as to more securely attach the structure. This species 

 has also a curious habit of biting off the tips of the leafy twigs above the nest, generally to a 

 uniform height and for a space averaging eighteen inches in diameter. The nests are built in 

 the topmost twigs of a long slender branch of a Eucalyptus or gum sapling, at a height 

 varying usually from twenty to fifty feet, although I have occasionally found them higher, and 

 in one instance, on the 4th November, 1893, at Belmore, at an altitude of fully one hundred feet. 

 This nest was situated in the topmost leafy twigs of a huge gum tree, and my attention was 

 drawn to it by seeing the male either bringing material or food for young ones, to the female, 

 who was sitting in the nest. Apparently the latter was finished, although the female, frequently 

 shifted herself as if paying attention to young ones or was occupied in the construction of 

 the nest. In the same locality a nest containing three fresh eggs was taken on the 28th November 

 1894, and two nests found on the loth and i8th December following containing respectively three 

 and two young ones, also a nest with three fresh eggs on the 3rd October, 1896. Two nests 

 started by the same pair of birds were destroyed by cutting off the leaning branches in which 

 they were built, both being in inaccessible positions. Mr. D. Swift brought me two nests he had 

 taken at Kingsgrove, on the nth and 21st September, 1897, the former contained one fresh egg 

 which was broken in lowering the branch in which the nest was built, the latter three fresh eggs. 

 In both instances the nest was built in a Narrow-leaved Ironbark, one at thirty and the other at 

 twenty feet from the ground. At Chatswood, a nest I had under daily observation, in September 

 and October 1898, was built in the topmost lofty twigs at the end of along slender upright branch 

 of a Rough-barked Apple Tree (Angophora intciiucdia }. Three weeks elapsed from the com- 

 mencement of the nest until the female began to sit. \i Belmore I have known birds after being 

 robbed of their eggs to construct and complete another nest in ten days. 



At Roseville I found a nest on the i6th September 1900, built in an inaccessible position in 

 a.n Angophora. Although the nests of this species are by no means common, they are easily found 

 when one knows where to look for them, and the birds are located in the breeding season. The 

 difficulty is to secure them, and this as a rule can only be done by cutting off" the branch and 

 gently lowering the structure, a feat not easily accomplished in the topmost branches of a 

 tree. A nest at Chatswood Mr. C. G. Johnston had been watching, in which the female had 

 been sitting for several days, was after an hour's work spent in lowering it from the topmost 

 branches of a tall Angophora intermedia, found to be empty. Mr. S. W. Moore had a similar 

 experience with a nest built in the top of a sapling at Eastwood. The latter nest is now in the 

 Group Collection of the Australian Museum. 



