222 



PARDALOTID^. 



Adult male — General colour above olive-grey passing into a pale huffy-brown, tinged with olive 

 on the lower back, rump and upper tail-coverts ; upper wing-coverts black, the lesser and median 

 series lipped with pale buffy-broivn ; primary coverts black tipped ivith yellow: quills black tipped 

 with ivhite, the innermost secondaries inargined on the basal portion of their outer webs with rufous- 

 brown, which passes into white towards the tips, the first primary very narrowly edged tvith white on 

 the outer web; the third primary distinctly margined with ivhite along th.e oiUer web except near 

 the tip; tail feathers black, all except the central pair with a white spot at the tip of the inner web, 

 increasing in size towards the outermost, which has the remainder of the feather brownish-black; lores 

 blackish; a broad streak extends from the nostril to the sides of the nape, the anterior portion being 

 rich yellow, and that above and behind the eye dull white ; forehead black; crown of head and nape 

 black ivith a white streak doicn the centre of the feathers ; ear- coverts and small feathers below the eye 

 blackish, conspicuously centred with dull white; cheeks ash,y while ; throat and centre of fore neck 

 yellow, the sides of the latter pale ashy-brotvn; centre of the breast and abdomen dull tvhite, separated 

 from the pale buffy-broivn sides of the body by an ill-defined broad streak of dull yellow slightly tinged 

 with olive; under tail-coverts pale buff; bill black ; legs and feet brown; iris black. Total length in 

 the flesh ^-J inches, wing 2-6o, tail I'J/), hill 0-3, tarsus 0-75. 



Adult female — Similar in plumage to the male. 



Distribution — Southern Queensland, New South Wales, \'ictoria, Tasmania, and some of the 

 larger islands of Bass Strait. 



/T^HE Allied Diamond-bird is abundantly distributed in Tasmania and some of the larger 

 -L islands of Bass Strait. It also occurs in Victoria, New South Wales, and Southern 

 Queensland. In the Australian Museum collection there are numerous skins of this species 

 obtained by Mr. George Masters and Mr. K. Broadbent in different parts of Tasmania, a few 

 obtained in the neighbourhood of Sydney and other parts of New South Wales, and a skin of an 

 adult male procured by the late Mr. George Barnard on the Dawson River, Queensland. I have 

 also met with it in different parts of Southern Victoria, where on two occasions I found it 

 nesting in hollow limbs of lofty gum trees. Although this species is widely distributed over 

 Eastern New South Wales and may be obtained in the suburbs of Sydney, it is the rarest 

 of the striped crowned species of the genus Pardalotus inhabiting the State. In habits it closely 

 resembles Pardalotus assiinilis. At Ashfield I have seen it feeding among the leafy twigs of a gum 

 tree in my garden and only a few feet above my head, at the same time uttering its oft repeated 

 call of " pick-it-up" with a single low sweet note between, which can only be heard when one 

 is close to the bird. 



Gould states "The young birds have the tips of the spurious wing orange instead of yellow; 

 and although the whole plumage possesses the same character as that of the adult, the markings 

 are less brilliant and well-defined."" In all the young birds I have examined, some of which had 

 recently left the nest, the crown of the head is uniform in colour with the back, and the tips of 

 the primary coverts are yellow as in the adult. In some specimens, however, the yellow tips 

 to the primary-coverts are very faintly indicated and of small size. 



From notes made by Dr. L. Holden in Tasmania, I have extracted the following; — "On 

 the loth October, i886, I saw Pardalotus affinis entering holes in trees about twenty feet from 

 the ground. With tomahawk and chisel I opened up three of these holes on the 17th November; 

 in each was a nest, but in none, eggs. The nests were about an elbow's length away from the 

 entrance, the passage to each being a mere chink in the rotten wood of the interior, and so 

 narrow that one would think there could not possibly be a nest in the tree. Only one nest seemed 

 nearly complete, and that was a dome-shaped structure formed of narrow strips of inner bark. 

 From this nest I took two fresh eggs on the 8th December, and on examining it again on the 



Gould, Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., p. i6t (iS 



