On an UNUSUAL NESTING-SITE of SAULOPROCTA 



MELALEUCA. 



By Alfred J. North, C.M.Z.S., Ornithologist. 



A pair of Black and White Fantails (Sauloprocta melaleuca) 

 has frequented the garden and the verandahs of my house a1 

 Roseville, fer the past four years, usually breeding in the trees 

 in the neighbourhood. This year Mrs. North remarked that 

 this pair of birds was always under the wooden screen protect- 

 ing the breakfast-room window and thought the birds wen 

 building there. On the 1st September, 1907, I saw both birds 

 carrying nesting-material, and on making an examination found 

 no less than four nests about one-third built, had been 

 formed on the top of a smooth and painted wooden beam two 

 inches and three-quarters wide under the screen. Three of tin 

 partially built nests were afterwards found on the ground, 

 whether pulled off by Sparrows or Starlings, as I know of the 

 destructive habits of these species, or blown off bv the wind, I 

 cannot tell. The birds completed the remaining structure, and 

 when I examined it again on the 12th September it contained 

 one egg; as the nest did not feel too firmly attached to the beam. 

 I applied some thin liquid glue to its base. A n egg was deposited 

 on each of the two following days, and on the latter the female 

 began to sit. Lowering down each day the upper sash of the 

 window, the panels of which were filled with coloured glass com- 

 pletely' obscuring the nest when closed, one could watch while 

 seated at meals only a few feet away, or walking about the room, 

 the birds sharing the duties of incubation. A revelation was 

 the remarkably short time that each bird sat before calling to 

 its mate to be relieved, and as I was just recovering from an 

 accident met with in the field, I had ample opportunities for 

 making observations. The average time each bird sat was a 

 quarter of an hour ; once it was as short as four minutes, and 

 once its duration lasted twenty-five minutes. After calling, the 

 sitting bird would keep a sharp look out for its mate, and directly 



