113 



ferns. Farther inland wool is also used as a building material. An average nest measures 

 externally at the rim two inches and three-quarters in diameter by two inches in depth, the 

 inner cup measuring two inches in diameter by one inch and three-quarters in depth. Frequently 

 the nest is contracted at the rim by being attached to a thin acute angled fork. The position of the 

 nest is varied, any suitable bush or tree being utilized as a nesting site. Gum saplings, tea-trees, 

 and turpentine-trees are often resorted to in the neighbourhood of Sydney, the nest being more 

 often built between six and twelve feet from the ground, and sometimes in a thick drooping 

 branch of a turpentine or gum sapling at a height of three or four feet. At Port Hacking I saw 

 them in narrow-leaved gum trees as high as forty feet, two nests with the birds sitting being 

 found in the same tree. In parks and gardens, pines are chielly resorted to, while at Western 

 Port, \'ictoria, I found as many as seven tenanted nests in an afternoon, built in prickly cicada 

 hedges around gardens. In mountain ranges it is built in any suitable tree in the undergrowth. 

 The nest figured, taken by Mr. S. Robinson, near Bathurst, in December 18Q5, is a remarkably 

 pretty one. It is suspended to a thin forked horizontal branch of a briar-bush, the rim and 

 outer portion of the structure being constructed of pure white lamb's wool intermingled with 

 very fine bright green mosses, and the inside lined with thin yellowish-white rootlets. 



The eggs are two or 

 three in number for a sit- 

 ting, and are subject to 

 ronsiderable variation in 

 the colour, character and 

 disposition of their mark- 

 ings. Typically, they vary 

 in ground colour from a 

 l.iint reddish-white to a 

 \ elluwish-bufl', which is 

 either freckled or spotted 

 with light red, chestnut- 

 red, or purplish-brown, 

 intermingled with a few 

 underlying markings of 

 lilac or purplish- grey. 

 Usually specimens that 

 are freckled, ha\e the 

 markings distributed all 

 oxer the shell, but pre- 

 dominating on the thicker 

 end, and as in the spotted 

 or blotched specimens they 

 frequently form a cap or zone. A rare variety has the ground colour almost pure white, which 

 is spotted and blotched, but particularly on the larger end with dark purplish-red, resembling a 

 variety of the eggs of Ptilotis pcninllata. A set of three, taken at Chatswood, on the 21st August, 

 1898, measures: — Length (A) 0-83 x 0-57 inches; (B) 0-84 0-58 inches; (C) 0-83 x 0-58 inches. 

 A set of three taken at Canterbury, on the 22nd December, 1894, measures: — Length (A) o-8 

 X 0-63 inches; (B) 0-79 x 0-63 inches; (C) o-8 x 0-62 inches. 



In the neighbourhood of Sydney the normal breeding season of this species commences 

 distinctly later than that of either of its congeners Ftilotis anricomis, and P.fusca. Odd nest^ may 

 however, occasionally be found at the latter end of July or early in August, but nests with fresh 



SKST OF THE YELLOW-FACEK HONKV-EATKH. 



