142 



MKLIPIIAGID.K. 



colour, and character of their markings. Some types are undoubtedly among the most beautiful 

 eggs of any Honey-eater. Typically they are of a fleshy-buff ground colour, which passes into 

 a warm reddish-buff on the larger end, where it is spotted and blotched with rich purplish-red 

 intermingled with similar underlying markings of purplish-grey. Others have the ground colour 

 of a uniform fleshy-buff and the markings consisting of spots, short streaks, and small blotches 

 of purplish-red distributed over the surface of the shell, but predominating on the thicker end 

 where they form an irregular zone. Of a very beautiful type is a set now before me with the 

 ground colour almost pure white with a broad clouded band on the thicker end of rich dark red. 

 I have another distinct type of a pale fleshy-buff ground colour, zoned around the larger 

 end with indistinct spots and dots of a slightly darker shade of the ground colour. The eggs of 

 this set, taken at Canterbury, on the 23rd November, 1892, are unusually small and closely 

 resemble in colour and size the eggs of P^/Vofe kcartlandi. Length (A) 0-82 x o-6 inches; (B) 

 0-8 X o-6i inches. .\ set of two taken at Canterbury on the 14th November, 1892, measures: — 

 Length (A) 0-89 x 0-72 inches; (B) o-88 x o-68 inches. This set also contains an egg of the 

 Pallid Cuckoo. A set of three taken at Roseville, on the 3rd August, 1902, measures: — Length 

 (A) 0-95 X 0-65 inches; (6)0-94 ^ o'65 inches; (C) 0-96 x o-66 inches. 



Fledgelings are brown above with only a slight tinge of olive, the wings and tail duller in 

 colour than the adult, the forehead and occiput being slightly washed with olive-yellow, lores, 

 sides of head and ear-coverts blackish; lengthened plumes behind the ears and feathers on sides 

 of throat very pale olive-yellow; all the under surface olive-brown the centre of the breast and 

 abdomen dull olive-yellow; bill and gape yellow; tip of bill and a line extending below the 

 nostril brown; legs flesh-colour; iris blackish-brown. ^^ ing 2-3 inches. This description 

 is taken from an example I caught at Roseville on the 12th October, 1901. I have seen fully 

 grown young birds being fed in the bush, which were indistinguishable in colour from the adults. 



This species is one of the earliest breeders near Sydney, nests with eggs or young being 

 common at the latter end of July or early in August, although occasionally I have found them 

 as early as the middle of June. I have frequently discovered them when searching for the 

 nests of Psophodes crepitans, in August, the normal breeding season continuing until the end 

 of January, when two or more broods are reared. Odd nests may be found, but not often, from 

 February to June. In company with Mr. Frank Hislop on the 28th January, 1899, a nest with 

 two fresh eggs was found at Middle Harbour. Several scores of the nests of this species have 

 been examined with eggs or young, but unless the eggs were remarkably handsome, or of an 

 unusual variety, like those of many other common species they were seldom taken. .A nest 1 

 found on the 12th August, 1905, in some vines close to my fence at Roseville, contained a 

 recently hatched young one, which left the nest a fortnight later. When a month old it was 

 caught in one of the outhouses, and was then barely distinguishable from the adult in plumage. 

 It was remarkable that the bird did not wander farther away from where it was reared. For 

 six weeks its almost incessant note, ;//, zip, could be heard all day long as it followed its parents 

 about for food. 



Ptilotis cassidix. 



HELMETED HONE V-EATER. 

 Ptilotis cassidix (.Jard.), Gould, Proc. Zool. .Soc, ISfiG, p. ."j.iS (nomen nudum). 

 Ptilotis cassidix, Gould, Suppl. Bds. Austr., fol. Vol., pi. ;59 issued iii Part IV., 1st Dec. 18G7. 

 I'tUotis kadbeateri, McCoy, Ann. Mag. Nat. Hist., :3rd Ser., Vol. XX., No. 130, p. 442, pub. 1st 

 Dec, 1867. 



