94 



MELIPHAGID.E. 



The breeding season commences in August and continues until the end of January. At 

 Chatswood I took a nest with two fresh eggs, on the i6th September, 1901. The nest was built 

 in a gum sapling about eight feet from the ground. The female alone constructed this nest 

 which was commenced on the 7th September, the first egg being deposited eight days later; 

 while examining it the male perched within six inches of my face. The second egg was deposited 

 the following day and the female was disturbed while sitting. While taking the nest the female 

 was feeding in the blossom of a low gum sapling near at hand, and the male was singing in a tall 

 Eucalyptus. A week later, I watched for some time the female of presumably the same pair of 

 birds, removing strips of bark from a half formed nest built in a sapling close to the tree in which 

 the nest with eggs was taken. On the 4th October following at Roseville, I saw a female 

 building in a Turpentine tree, the outline of the nest being barely formed. Early on the morning 

 of the 7th October, I saw two females carrying nesting-material in different parts of the bush. 



One I watched tearing 

 off strips of the soft red 

 inner-bark of an Aiigo- 

 plwra intcniu'dia. Un- 

 mindful of my presence 

 only a few yards away 

 it f^ rasped a shred in its 

 bill, firmly grasping the 

 stem with its claws, 

 -^^^^^^^^^^u- 'ian^r^^^^^sB,<^' I -^^^ 'T^m ^gS-'^st which its tail 



P^ /^^^^^^^^■f'V^ffiS^^P'^l^^' '-.^^W - 't^P' fl feathers were outspread, 



it started to tug; the bark 

 yielding, the bird held 

 on with its bill only and 

 rapidly fluttered its 

 wings until the shred 

 was torn off. This it 

 repeated several times, 

 flying with the nesting 

 material noiselessly and 

 rapidly away. Mean- 

 while the beautiful old 

 male was engaged in probing the flowers of a low gum sapling close by, after the manner of 

 Acanthorhyiichus tenuirostris. Poised in the air on outspread wings and with its brilliant 

 scarlet and black back, it looked like a flame of fire as it hovered over each white blossom. 

 Six days later I found the nest and eggs here figured in a low Turpentine tree close by. The 

 nest, which I photographed the following day, contained two fresh eggs, and was about ten 

 feet from the ground. Another nest built in a Turpentine in an adjoining paddock contained 

 two young ones. That season the birds suddenly left the district at the end of October. 

 In Dobroyde garden on the 21st December, 188S, I found two nests, both were built among the 

 rigid spine-like leaves of the acclimatised Pinus insiguis, and were about four feet from the ground. 

 Each contained two recently hatched young birds. All were, howe\er, dead, probably perished 

 through the extreme heat, for it was a period of drought and high temperatures. At Rope's 

 Creek, about twenty-seven miles west of Sydney, Mr. George Masters informs me that he found 

 five Blood-birds' nests in one day, each containing two fresh eggs. All the nests were formed 

 of the paper-like bark of that tree. At Eastwood Mr. S. W. Moore found a nest with two 

 slightly incubated eggs on the 2nd January, 1893, and another nest apparently nearing 

 completion. On the 21st of January of the same year, and in the same locality he found a nest 

 in which voung birds were beincj fed. 



NEST AND KcfiS OF THE .SANGUINEOUS HOXEV-EATER. 



