INSESSORES. 583 



specimens from every locality yet explored. I fomid it 

 breeding on the Lower Namoi, which proves that the interior 

 of the comitry is inhabited by it as well as those portions 

 between the ranges and the coast. 



Mr. White, of the Reed-beds near Adelaide, says — 



" This little bird is sometimes rather numerous here. It 

 appears to be wholly frugivorous, for all of those I have 

 dissected had fruit in them ; it has no regular stomach, not 

 even an enlargement of the intestine, which averages above 

 five inches and a half in length, and through which the food 

 passes whole. It arrives at Adelaide about February, and 

 stays but a short time. I have met with it very far north." 



Its beautiful purse-like nest is composed of the white 

 cotton-like substance found in the seed-vessels of many plants, 

 and among other trees is sometimes suspended on a small 

 branch of a Casuarina or an Acacia pendula. The ground- 

 colour of the eggs is dull white, with very minute spots of 

 brown scattered over the surface ; they are nine lines long- 

 by five and a half lines broad. 



The male has the head, all the upper surface, wings, and 

 tail black, glossed with steel-blue ; primaries black ; throat, 

 breast, and under tail-coverts scarlet ; flanks dusky ; abdomen 

 white, with a broad patch of black down the centre ; irides 

 dark brown ; bill blackish brown ; feet dark brown. 



The female is dull black above, glossed with steel-blue on 

 the wings and tail ; throat and centre of the abdomen bufi"; 

 flanks light brown ; under tail-coverts pale scarlet. 



Genus NECTARINIA, Illiger. 



It gives me great pleasure to state that at least one species 

 of this genus is found in Australia, a circumstance which 

 might naturally be expected when so many inhabit New 

 Guinea and the adjacent islands. Birds of this form are also 

 spread throughout the Philippines to Malasia, China, and 



