MELIOKNIS. 67 



and nests with eggs or young are fairly plentiful during the two following months. Occasionally 

 nests may be found with eggs in June, but they are most numerous in July and August. Nests 

 with fresh eggs may also be found in October, and again as late as the end of December. 

 Usually the actions of the birds betray the vicinity of the nest. At Willoughby, on the 22nd 

 April, 1899, while searching in the undergrowth for a nest, one of the birds, probably the female, 

 tried to lure me away by feigning a broken wing. The nest I found built a few inches from the 

 ground, under the shelter of a small tree, contained two young ones, who as I approached 

 scrambled out of the nest and took refuge in the surrounding scrub. 



At Copmanhurst i\Ir. G. Savidge has found nests containing young in July, and others with 

 eggs in August and September. Mr. Savidge informs me that these nests were built in rushes, 

 tufts of long coarse grass, and low undergrowth. 



The nest figured on Plate A.. 11, containing two fresh eggs was taken by nie at Roseville, 

 on the 9th October, 1898. Externally it is roughly and irregularly formed of very thin wiry 

 plant stems resting on a base consisting entirely of strips of red stringybark, a few pieces of the 

 latter material also being worked into the platform around the sharply defined cup-like cavity. 

 The inner walls are lined entirely with the thread-like leaves of the Casuarina, and the bottom of 

 the structure with the dark red velvety inhsoi Bankua cones. It averages externally four inches 

 and a half m diameter by two inches and three-quarters in depth; the inner cup, one inch and 

 three-quarters in diameter by one inch and a half in depth. This nest was built about eight 

 inches from the ground among some bracken ferns I Ptcvis aquilina), and was partly sheltered on 

 one side by a dead leafy branch of a low gum sapling. 



Meliornis mystacalis. 



MOUSTACHE D HOXEV-EATER. 



Meliphaga mystacalU, Gould, Proc. Zool. Soc, 1840, p. 1(31: id., Bds. Austr., fol., Vol. IV., pi. 26 

 (1848). 



Meliornis mystacalis, Gould, Handlik., IJds. Austr., Vol. I., p. 491 (186.5); Gadow, Cat. Bds. Brit. 

 Mus., Vol. IX., p. 2.55 (1884). 



Adult male. — Lib- thv adult mili' nf ^Ieliornls sericea, OouM, //((/ luicuiij nulij n fur af tlie 

 iimiiUj)',itl,<-rs tin thr nntr,' af th^- fonhmil sJi,,htlii t'lpprd ir'ith ,rh it,; tli. fratloTs mi tlir lu/cr fhmiit are 

 rirli d,irh hn,ir,i. liisl,'„d nf hlark, <n,d tj,r tiift ,,f ,rh Ur phnn.s ,■„,„„„■, ir]„,i ,„, tl,,- ,■/„■,■/.:-< ,nid ^iirrudii„i 

 ovr till' sldi's nftlir tjirnat inid ii>-rk Isluirjrr, ifirr.nfrr. ini'l hi iirmUit,' 'lu/nrni. tlv iin'iiit trniiiiintliiij 

 towards tin- Imfk. Total IciHjlli of skin, irCi inc/a's, ivin;/ 3. tail .'S. hill O-'.l], tarsus OSo. 



Al)ULr FR}.\\LV. — Siiiiiliir in iJimauir to tlv nail,', hut sliiihtl ij siiailhr. 



Distribution — Western Australia. 



■]^«T (J form of the White-cheeked Honey-eater is found in South Australia, but the present 

 -L ^ species is an extreme western representative of Meliornis sericea, from which it differs in 

 the characters pointed out in the above description. Typically it has a longer bill than the 

 eastern form ; fewer of the small black feathers too on the forehead are tipped with white, and in 

 one specimen now before me, the black feathers at the base of the culmen are entirely devoid of 

 these white tips. Mr. George Masters obtained five specimens while collecting on behalf of the 

 Trustees of the Australian Museum, at King George's Sound, Western Australia, in 1866 and 

 1868, but did not succeed in finding the nest and eggs. Mr. Tom Carter informs me that it occurs 

 sparingly near Albany and Perth. 



