126 



MKLIPlIAniD.E. 



climbing plant, the dried parts of which exactly resembled the exterior of the nest. A favourite 

 situation is among the young shoots that spring in a clump from the butt of a cut-down 

 Eucalyptus tree. In the breeding season the brightness of the green plumage and the bird's 

 active habits make it very conspicuous. I have found nests with eggs early in September, and 

 once found two half-grown young on the 17th September. I have many notes of seeing the bird 

 building in September, but none in August." 



In December, 1906, I noted tiiis species in isolated pairs in various localities around Hobart, 

 my attention first being drawn to it by its notes, some of which resembled so closely those of a 

 tree-frog, that I was doubtful for some time, if they could have been uttered by a bird. At 

 Glenorchy one afternoon, Mr. M. Harrison and Mr. A. lUitler, who were in a different part of the 

 bush, returned with an adult male and female that the former had shot, the latter finding their 

 nest about three parts built in a low Bursaria spinosa. Subsequently I met with this species at 

 the Cascades, Knocklofty, the Springs, Brown's River, and New Norfolk. At Bellerive, Dr. L. 

 Holden gave me one of its nests, which is thickly coated externally with wool and lined inside 

 with rabbit fur. Close to the beach, he also pointed out a solitary small briar bush in which 

 he had found this species nesting. 



The nest figured which con- 

 tained two fresh eggs was procured 

 by Mr. E. D. Atkinson, at Waratah, 

 Mount Bischoff, Tasmania, on the 

 14th October, 1906. Outwardly, it 

 is formed of narrow strips of dried 

 bark intermingled with dried grasses, 

 the inside being entirely lined with 

 opossum fur. It is a compactly 

 built structure and measures ex- 

 ternally three inches and three- 

 quarters in diameter by three inches 

 and three-quarters in depth, the 

 inner cup measuring two inches and 

 a half in diameter by two inches and 

 a half in depth. It was attached at 

 the sides to several thin horizontal 

 twigs at the end of a branch of a 

 small-leaved shrub at a height of 



NEST OF THE YELLOW-THROATED HONEY-EATER. gjj^ fggj. fi-Q|-,i ([^g oround. 



A nest taken on the 2yth November, 1890, at Circular Head, on the north-west coast of 

 Tasmania, is an open cup-shaped, thick walled structure, outwardly composed of strips of bark, 

 grasses, dead weeds, and sheep's wool, all matted together, and thickly lined inside with a thick 

 layer of cow-hair. Externally it measures five inches in diameter, by three inches and a half in 

 depth, the inner cup measuring two inches and a half in diameter, by two inches in depth. This 

 nest Dr. Holden informs me, was built against the main stem of alow, scraggy box shrub about 

 three feet and a half from the ground, and contained two fresh eggs. 



The eggs are two or three in number for a sitting, oval in form, the shell being close- 

 grained, smooth, and slightly lustrous. They are of a fleshy-buff ground colour, becoming darker 

 on the larger end, some having rounded penumbral spots, and others irregular shaped markings 

 of reddish-chestnut or chestnut and underlying spots of dark purple or purplish-grey, the markings 

 predominating as a rule on the thicker end. Some specimens have the ground colour of a 



