504 BIRDS or AUSTRALIA. 



assume the plumage of the adults, but the colour is not so 

 rich or decided. 



I found a nest of this species in a gully under the Liverpool 

 range ; it was placed in the thickest part of one of the creep- 

 ing i)lants which overhung a small pool of water ; like that of 

 the rest of the genus, it was cup-shaped in form, suspended 

 by the brim, and very neatly made of sticks and lined with 

 very fine twigs ; the eggs are two in number, of a pearly 

 white spotted with purplish brown, the spots forming a zone 

 at the larger end ; they are eleven and a half lines long by 

 eight lines broad. 



Upper surface ohve-green ; under surface the same colour 

 but paler; behind the ears an oval spot of fine yellow; region 

 of the eyes blackish ; below the eye a narrow stripe of yellow ; 

 bill black at the tip, yellow at the base ; legs purphsh flesh- 

 colour ; irides dark lead-colour ; gape white. 



Sp. 307. PTILOTIS SONORA, Gould. . 



Singing Honey-eater. 



Ptilotis soaorus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc, part viii. p. 160. 

 Meliphaga sonora, Gray and Mitch. Gen. of Birds, vol. i. p. 122, Me- 



liphaga, sp. 12, 

 Doo-7'um-duo-rwn, Aborigines of the lowlands, and 

 Goolbo-ort, Aborigines of the mountain districts of Western Australia. 

 Large?- Honey- sucker, Colonists of Swan River. 



Ptilotis sonoms, Gould, Birds of Australia, foL, vol. iv. pi. 33. 



I have abundant evidence that the range of this species 

 extends across the entire continent of Australia from east to 

 west; I found it very numerous on the Namoi and other 

 portions of the interior of New South Wales, and equally 

 plentiful in South Australia ; it is one of the commonest birds 

 of the colony of Swan River, and we know that it extends very 

 far north, for examples were procured by Gilbert during Dr. 

 Leichardt's expedition from Moreton Bay to Port Essington. 



