62 



MELIPHAGID.B. 



At Canterbury and Botany during a week at the latter end of April, 1894, 1 found seventeen new 

 nests of the New Holland Honey-eater, eleven of them containing eggs, or young ones a few 

 days old, the remainder of the nests being in different stages of construction, and in addition saw 

 fledgelings in the bush, that had just left the nest. These observations I have since verified 

 during the succeeding twelve years. In the autumn and winter of 1906, unusually dry periods, 

 the nests of this species, also of Meliornis sericea, were very common in the neighbourhood of 

 Sydney. 



Many young birds are destroyed by bush fires. On the 5th August, 1895, I went to Botany 

 and found in a small patch of scrub two nests with eggs, two with young in the down, and one 

 nest nearly finished. At the time men were engaged in setting fire to some cut scrub, a fierce 

 wind sprang up and it extended to the adjoining bush, and when 1 left a large tract of country 

 was in flames. Visiting it a fortnight later, the patch of scrub where the nests were, nothing 

 remained but burnt and blackened stems, and without a bird to be seen. 



1 saw a beautiful albino of this species at Botany, several times. It was apparently beino- 

 chased by several of its normal plumaged congeners. There is a partial albino specimen in the 

 Australian Museum collection. It has the plumage dull white, the quills and tail feathers are 

 margined with yellow, crown of the head and throat having a faint brownish wash; sides of the 

 head brown. 



When I first visited the classic collecting grounds of La Perouse, and the northern shores 

 of Botany Bay, in September 1886, and for many years before being more or less cleared, 

 they possessed an especial charm for me. To search for the nests of Meliornis nova-hollandia and 

 Glycypliila fulvifrons in the bright clear days of early spring, was indeed a pleasure. The heath- 

 lands were then in flower, and the air laden with the perfume of .\cacia, and at times with the 

 slowly ascending incense from some half-burnt and still smouldering Xanthorrhxa, the remains 

 of a grass-tree gum collector's camp fire. How closely are these places associated with the 

 early history of settlement in Australia, and its zoology and botany. Looking across the blue 

 wind-swept waters of Botany Bay one may see at Kurnell the stone column that marks the spot 

 where Captain Cook first landed in 1770. Here too, Solander and Banks collected specimens 

 of an entirely new and curious fauna and flora. Eighteen years afterwards Governor Phillip in 

 command of the First Fleet landed on its shores, and for a long time after the removal of the 

 colony to Sydney Cove they were often visited by Surgeon-General White in quest of specimens. 

 Many of the .Australian birds described by Dr. Latham in his "Index Ornithologicus." were 

 obtained in these localities. Almost simultaneous with the arrival of Phillip at Botany, appeared 

 the French frigates, the Boussoh and the Astrolabe, at the entrance of the bay, under the command 

 of the illustrious but ill-fated La Perouse. He remained for some time and was last heard of 

 from the spot near North Botany Head that now bears his name. The body of Pfere !e Receveur 

 one of the naturalists of this expedition, who died on the 17th February, 1788, is buried here. 

 Close by, the imposing cenotaph erected to the memory of La Perouse and his companions is a 

 conspicuous feature in the landscape. On its base are attached brasses commemorating the 

 visits at different times of the commanders and officers of ses'eral French warships. Of late 

 years the scrub and heath-lands between La Perouse and Botany have been much altered, and 

 a cemetery formed, to which has been transferred the remains of John William Lewin, who 

 published the first work on Australian birds. At Kurnell on the opposite shore of the bay, but 

 little change has apparently taken place since the famous British navigator first landed at this 

 spot, now the richest in historic interest and associations in .Vustralia. 



