84 MELTPHAGID.E. 



Wing 3"2 inches. This was the only bird of this species he had ever seen. The wing-measure- 

 ments of two mounted adult specimens in the Old Collection are respectively 3-2 inches and 3'5 

 inches. Both have the white under surface almost devoid of the small blackish-brown 

 markings. 



In December i8gg this species made its appearance at White Rock near Bathurst, and Dr. 

 G. Hurst obtained its nest and eggs, presenting the former to the Trustees of the Australian 

 Museum, and subsequently sending me the latter as well as a pair of skins on loan for examination. 

 The adult male is similar to the one described abo\e ; but has only a few short blackish streaks 

 on the breast. ^^ ing y6 inches. The female is smaller and has the white under surface more 

 flecked or streaked with blackish-brown than the male, \^'inf; 3-6 inches. In February 1901, 

 this rare wanderer visited and nested near Sytlnev, a nest with two fresh eggs being taken at 

 P'ivedock on the 14th February, and the parent bird procured. A week later .Mr. R. Grant shot 

 an adult male in the adjoining suburb of Abbotsford, and brought back with him an unfinished 

 nest which had been pointed out to him by a boy. It consisted of a few thin strips of red-strmgy 

 bark and bark fibre, and was built in the drooping leafy twigs of a Eucalyptus at a height of ten 

 feet from the ground. The bird, an adult male, although breeding was in the moult, the greater 

 series of the upper wing-coverts being distinctly tipped with white, and the new secondaries 

 edged around their tips with white : all the tail-feathers, e.xcept two new ones are abraded and 

 worn away around their tips. The stomach of this specimen contained the remains of insects, 

 apparently those of small black beetles. 



The nest procured on the 23rd December, 1899, by Dr. George Hurst, at White Rock, near 

 Bathurst, is one of the most flimsy specimens of bird architecture I have seen. It is cup-shaped 

 and formed almost entirely of fine yellowish-brown fibrous rootlets, with a very slight addition 

 of spider's web. The sides of it are attached to the thin drooping thread-like leaves of a 

 Casuarina, and it is so loosely constructed that daylight is as easily seen through it as the inter- 

 spaces of the surrounding leaves. Externally it measures two inches and a half in diameter by 

 two inches in depth, the inner cup measuring two inches in diameter by one inch and three- 

 quarters in depth. The nest was built in a tree on a bank of the Macquarie River, at a height of 

 thirty feet from the ground, and contained two eggs one slightlv incubated, the other addled. 



The eggs are ov'al in form and somewhat compressed towards the smaller end, the shell 

 being close grained and its surface smooth and almost lustreless. The ground colour is a pale 

 salmon-red which is thickly freckled and spotted with darker shades of red. In one specimen 

 the ground colour is slightly darker, and the markings larger and confluent, forming a broken 

 zone, a few large spots also being intermingled with the smaller ones on the thinner end. On the 

 other specimen the markings are slightly larger on the thicker end, where also a few obsolete 

 spots of dull violet-grey are visible. Length (A) 0-78 x 0-59 inches; (B) 0-77 x 0-57 inches. 

 These eggs resemble in colour a variety of those of the Yellow-faced Honey-eater, Ptilotis chrysops, 

 Latham. Dr. Hurst had never observed the Painted Honey-eater in the Bathurst District prior 

 to finding the above described nest and eggs. This pair of birds built another nest in the 

 drooping leaves of the limb above in the same tree, from which Mr. S. Robinson took a set of 

 two eggs early in the following January. 



Gould found a nest with two nearly fledged young on the 5th September, but judging by 

 the dates quoted, (23rd December and 14th February) the Painted Honey-eater is apparently 

 a late breeder in the normal nesting season of our Australian birds. 



