PTI I.OTIS. 115 



ground for them, they quickly let one know of their presence by their loud chirruping notes, 

 which they continued to utter until their wants were supplied. On the 2nd August, 1891, I 

 counted no less than fifteen engaged in eating some pieces of bread thrown to them. So tame 

 did they become that they would allow one to approach within a few feet before frying away. 

 One of these birds that could be easily recognised by having a bare scalp, visited the place with 

 slight intermissions for three years, returning with its young, as did others after each breeding 

 season was over. 



The nest is a small, open, neat cup-shaped structure, and is usually built at the junction of 

 a thin forked horizontal branch, over which the rim is firmly wo\en. In the neighbourhood 

 of Sydney it is e-xternally formed of thin strips of the red inner bark of a Turpentine tree 

 or Eucalyptus, held together with cobweb and lined inside with fine dried grasses, and at the 

 bottom with opossum fur and cow-hair. An average one measures externally two inches and a 

 half in diameter by two inches in depth, and the inner cup two inches in diameter by one inch 

 and three-quarters in depth. Generally it can be distinguished from the nests of any other 

 member of the genus, even from the ground, by its extreme neatness and the prevailmg dull red 

 colour of the bark used almost exclusively in its outer construction. 



Nests taken by Mr. E. H. Lane on Wambangalang Station, near Dubbo, are formed 

 throughout of fine wiry grasses with a slight admixture of wool just sufficient to hind it firmly 

 together, with a lining of the latter material at the bottom of the structure only. In the 

 neighbourhood of Sydney the nest is usually built in a Turpentine tree or Eucalyptus at a height 

 varying from ten to sixty feet from the ground, and as a rule well out of the way of bird-nesting 

 boys, consequently they do not fall an easy prey like those of Ftilotis aurkomis. Mr. E. H. Lane 

 informs me that on Wambanga'ang Station he has found about a score of nests of Ftilotis fusca, 

 and they were generally built in suckers growing from ring-barked Box trees at a height of from 

 four to twelve feet from the ground. With the exception of once finding only two eggs, all 

 contained three eggs. 



The eggs are two or three in number for a sittmg. oval in form, the shell being close grained, 

 smooth and lustreless. They vary in ground colour from a yellowish to a rich salmon-buff, and 

 are faintly and sparingly spotted and dotted with dull chestnut-red, but specimens are often 

 found with the markings of only a slightly darker shade of the ground colour. Typically they 

 may be distinguished from the eggs of most other species of the genus by the rich hue of their 

 ground colour. A set of two taken at Ashfield on the 4th August, 1889, measure: — Length (A) 

 078 X 0-57 inches; (B) 076 x 0-58 inches. A set of two taken by Mr. H. G. Barnard, at 

 Duaringa, Queensland, on the 17th July, 1892, measures: — Length (A) 075 x 0-57 inches; (B) 

 072 X 0-56 inches. A set of three taken by Mr. E. H. Lane, at Wambangalang Station, near 

 Dubbo, New South Wales, on the 27th October, 1898, measure as follows: — Length (A) o-8i 

 X 0-57 inches; (B) o'8 x 0-57 inches; (C) 079 x o-6 inches. 



July and the five following months constitute the usual breeding season of this species. On 

 the 24th July, 1891, at Ashfield, I saw one of these birds tearing off shreds of the inner bark 

 of a Turpentine tree and constructing its nest in the topmost leafy twigs of a lofty Eucalyptus. 

 The previous year I found a nest in a similar position, as late as the 27th December, and have 

 seen fledgelings that had recently left the nest at the beginning of February. 



Mr. E. H. Lane has on several occasions at ^^^ambangalang, found the egg of the Pallid 

 Cuckoo in the nest of this species. 



There is almost a pure albino of the Fuscous Honey-eater in the Australian Museum 

 collection, procured by Mr. Stanley F. Ramsay at Tumberumba, New South Wales. The 

 plumage above and below is pure white, the ocular region and ear-c averts yellow, the wings and 

 tail washed with vellow. 



