136 



MELIPHAGID.E. 



Mr. C. French, Junr., presented three nests of this species to the Trustees of the AustraHan 

 Museum, and through him I ha\e received the following notes from Mr. Charles McLennan, 

 who took the nests on Pine Plains Station in the Wimmera District, Victoria, in 1902: — "Ftilotis 

 ornata is common in the mallee scrubs of North-western Victoria, and is often seen in company 

 with P. penicillata, which it resembles in habits; like that species too, it often utters a succession 

 of long shrill warning notes. It feeds upon honey extracted from flowers, also insects, and I 

 have seen it eating the scale on mallee bushes. It builds a cup-shaped nest, which is usually 

 attached to the drooping leafy twigs of the mallee gum, at a height varying from about four to 

 twelve feet from the ground. Two or three eggs are laid for a sitting. The breeding season 

 commences at the latter end of July and continues until the middle of January. The first nest 

 I found this season was on the 7th August, 1902, which contained two fresh eggs, and the last 

 on the 2oth December, in which were three hard set eggs." 



\Mtli a nest sent from Broome Hill, Western Australia, Mr. Tom Carter wntes:—" Ptilofis 

 oiiiata is a very common species from the Geraldton District to Broome Hill, but I did not meet 

 with it as far south as Albany. It utters a great variety of notes, and is very pugnacious in the 

 pairing season, small flocks of five or six, frequently fighting almost at one's feet, on the ground. 

 In the Broome Hill District nests have been noted from August until the end of November." 



The nest is an open cup-shaped structure, slightly contracted at the rim, and formed 

 externally of fine green grasses, silky plant-down and egg-bags of spiders matted together, the 

 inside of some being lined almost entirely with grasses, others with an admixture of grasses, plant- 

 down, feathers or wool. An average nest measures externally two inches and three-quarters in 

 diameter by two inches in depth; the inner cup measuring at the rim two inches, and in depth 

 one inch and a half. Of the nests referred to above, taken by Mr. McLennan, one is lined 

 entirely with very fine green grasses with the exception of a little plant-down at the bottom ; a 

 somewhat similar structure is thickly and smoothly coated externally with fine white plant- 

 down; another is lined with fine green grasses, plant-down, wool, a number of brilliant blue and 

 black feathers from the adult male of Mahmis melanotus, and a few pink plumes of Chlamvdodera 

 maculata. All are built in a species of £^!<f(7/)'/to5, two being attached at the sides to several 

 drooping leafy twigs, the other having the rim firmly worked over a thin horizontal fork. 



The eggs are usually two, sometimes three in number for a sitting, oval in form, the shell 

 being close-grained, smooth and slightly lustrous. Typically they are of a pale salmon-red 

 ground colour, over which is distributed minute freckles, spots, and small irregular shaped 

 markings varying from reddish-brown to rich red and faint purplish-red, which predominate as 

 a rule at the larger end, forming in some instances a more or less well defined cap or zone. Two 

 eggs of the sets obtained by Mr. McLennan have a faint yellowish-bufif ground colour passing 

 into reddish-buff on the larger end, where there is a few almost invisible spots and indistinct 

 blotches of a slightly darker shade. A remarkably handsome set of two are of a rich salmon-red, 

 the ground colour gradually becoming darker and forming a clouded cap on the larger end. 

 The eggs of another set are of a uniform rich salmon-red ground colour which is irregularly 

 spotted and blotched with faint purplish-red and reddish-brown, some of the markings appearino- 

 as if beneath the surface of the shell. A set of two measures: — Length (A) 078 x 0-56 inches; 

 (B) 0-8 X 0-59 inches. Another set measures:~Length (A) 073 x 0-56 inches; (B)o7j x 0-55 

 inches. 



As will be seen from the preceding notes, the breeding season of the Graceful Honey-eater 

 in South-eastern Australia, extends from the latter end of July into January. 



