148 MELIPHAGID.E. 



surface dull olive-yellow, slightly brighter on the centre of throat and fore neck, paler on the abdomen 

 and under tail-coverts, some of the latter having indistinct brownish centres; "bill black; legs and 

 feet broivnisli -black tinged with olive; irisblack; fleshy appendage on each sideofthe throat a bfautifal 

 lilac-colour" (Gould). Total length G'8 inches, wing o-J/., tail J'4, bill OSS, tarsus O'SJ. 



Adult female — Slighfly stuitlh'r and dnlh'r in plumfuiK Ihnn the m(d/'. 



Distribution — \'ictoria, South Australia, Kangaroo Island, Western Australia. 

 /~|^HE present species was discovered by Gould on the 26th June 1839, on the ranges near 

 -L the Upper Torrens in South Australia, and was described by him in the following year 

 in the " Proceedings of the Zoological Society." It is restricted to the extreme southern portion 

 of Australia, although like Ptilotis hucotis, and P. plumula, it has also been erroneously recorded 

 as occurring in the coastal districts of the extreme northern portion of the continent. Mr. C. 

 McLennan has noted it in different parts of the Wimmera District, in North-western Victoria, 

 and where he found it breeding. F'rom the Trustees of the South Australian Museum and 

 Mr. Edwin Ashby I have received on loan specimens from South Australia and Kangaroo 

 Island. There are specimens in the Australian Museum collection obtained by Mr. George 

 Masters at Port Lincoln, South .Australia, in September 1S65, and at Mongup, Salt River, 

 Western Australia, in January 1867. Dr. Cabanis,"- who instituted the genus Lichcnostoiiius for 

 the reception of the present species, separates the Western .\ustralian from the eastern birds 

 under the na.me o( Liihenosfoiniis pccideiitidis, hui m the specimens now before me collected by 

 Mr. Masters, I am unable to distinguish any difference sufficient to warrant their separation. 



From South Australia Mr. Edwin Ashby has kindly sent me the following notes: — "I have 

 only met with Ptilotis cratitia on Kangaroo Island in this State. In March 1905 it was very 

 numerous, frequenting the tall mallee round the township of Kingscote on the north side of 

 Kangaroo Island, and there taking the place that Ftilotis penicillata does in the park lands around 

 Adelaide. They were also plentiful in the bushes that grow on the coastal dunes for forty miles 

 westward, but here I found them more shy than those observed in the neighbourhood of 

 Kingscote. .\t the end of October 1905, I met with them in the bushes on the sand dunes at Middle 

 River, but not in the numbers I saw them in the early part of the year at Kingscote. Several 

 recently tiedged birds were seen, and a nest believed to belong to tliis species found in an Aster 

 bush four feet from the ground and containing a young one just hatched. I am afraid the old 

 birds had been shot, for the young one died a day or so later. In habits Ptilotis cratitia resembles 

 Ptilotis soiii'i'd, which is common in similar situations on the mainland opposite and among the 

 sandhills of the Gulf of St. Mncent. It is remarkable that the comparatively narrow strait 

 between Kangaroo Island and the mainland known as Backstairs Passage, should be the means 

 of so thoroughly separating the two species." 



A nest of this species in the Australian Museum collection, presented by Dr. Charles Ryan 

 and taken by Mr. C. McLennan on Pine Plains Station, on the 12th November, igo6, in the 

 Wimmera District, North-western \'ictoria, is a compact deep cup-shaped structure, externally 

 formed of bark fibre, narrow strips of bark and grasses, held together with a small quantity of 

 spiders' webs, the inside being thickly lined, particularly at the bottom with fine grasses, plant 

 down, and a few small feathers. Externally it measures two inches and three-quarters in 

 diameter by three inches in depth, the inner cup measuring two inches in diameter by two inches 

 in depth. 



A set of two eggs in Dr. Charles Ryan's collection, taken from the above described nest, are 

 oval in form, and somewhat rounded at the smaller end, the shell being close-grained, smooth 

 and lustrous. They are white, one specimen being minutely and sparingly dotted with chestnut- 

 brown on the larger end; the other, with the exception of a very few almost invisible dots of 



* Cab. Mus. Hein., Theil I., p. 119, note (1850.) 



