^'""'.■g.^'^] Gilbert, The Black-throated Honey-eater. 3 1 



or fur for the lining. Thus the foundation of bark is almost com- 

 pletely hicUlen from view. Very few other Honey-eaters' nests 

 can compare with this one in uniqueness of composition. It is 

 usually placed in the pendulous, tufty twigs of the uppermost 

 lateral branches of the box-tree, for which they show a keen 

 partiality, and the height from the ground is most frequently 

 between 20 and 40 feet — rarely lower, and sometimes higher. It 

 is at all times a difficult nest to find, as it is well concealed by the 

 thick, drooping, bushy twigs chosen to support it, the leaves of 

 which are drawn together as the material is attached to the 

 branchlets immediately above them, and, so secured in the leaves 

 which close round it, is thus afforded protection from strong 

 winds and incidentally obscured from below. At Blacktown I 

 located a nest getting built in the sprouts on the main trunk of a 

 smooth-barked gum which was well over 60 feet from the grijund, 

 this being the highest I have met with, while my friend, Mr. 11. 

 Keane, records finding one 12 feet or so in the lower branch of a 

 box sapling, this being about the lowest I know of. 



Two or three eggs are laid for a sitting, and in shape may be 

 oval, rt)unded-oval, or elongate-oval, varying considerably in 

 this respect, like most other Honey-eaters'. In colour they are 

 of a hght buffy-white, with an irregular zone of spots, freckles, 

 and blotches of a salmon-buff or reddish-buff colour, with a few 

 faint purplish underlying markings showing up here and there 

 between the surface markings. They possess no distinctive 

 characteristics whereby one is enabled to separate them from 

 specimens of other species of Melithreptus, but a few minor details 

 are worth mentioning. Generally they lack the brilliancy and 

 richness of the ground colour of the eggs of M. hrevirostris and 

 the contrast and intensity of coloration of the surface markings 

 of M. hinulatiis. Again, they are lustreless, while those of M. 

 lunulatiis are slightly lustrous. 



The late Mr. A. J. North described the young birds as having 

 " the upper parts faint rufous-brown, with dull grey bases to 

 the feathers, which show through here and there ; wings brown, 

 the upper wing coverts and secondaries with dull rufous-brown 

 margins ; tail feathers brown, margined with yellowish-olive, 

 more distinctly on the central ones, and passing into dull rufous- 

 brown around the tips ; head, ear coverts, and hind neck faint 

 rufous-brown, with a white band on the nape, dull rufous in the 

 central portion ; lores and tips of ear coverts blackish ; all the 

 under surface and under tail coverts dull white ; chin, centre of 

 throat, and fore neck washed with light rufous-brown ; wing 

 3 inches." 



Nectar constitutes the food of tlic young for the first few days, 

 gathered chiefly from Ihjwering eucalypts, which blossom pro- 

 fusely during spring and summer, and when they have gained 

 sufficient strength insects of all descriptions are fed to them 

 freely. 



On 12/ 11/ 16 I was strolling through the bush at Blacktown 



