INSESSORES. 463 



Fruit-eating Magpie, the note of wliich they often imitate. 

 They frequent nearly all the orchards and gardens about 

 Sydney, especially if they contain any of the native olive- or 

 Moreton Bay fig-trees in fruit, to which they are very partial. 

 I have known them, though seemingly with great reluctance, 

 eat the berries of the white cedar. Towards the beginning 

 of September those near Sydney pair, and seek for breeding- 

 places, each couple selecting a distinct locality, where they 

 remain during the whole of the season ; even if the nest be 

 taken, they will, like the Grallina australis, continue building 

 near the same place until the season has expired. 



" The nest is cup-shaped, and composed of shreds of the bark 

 of the stringy-bark tree, a species of Eucalyptus, strongly 

 interwoven, with the inside made thick and more compact by 

 the addition of the white paper-like bark of the tea-tree, or 

 any other material adapted for the purpose ; and lined with 

 the narrow leaves of the native oaks, or with grass and hair. 

 It is from four to five inches in diameter, three to four inches 

 wide inside, about three and a half inches deep, and is usually 

 suspended between a fork at the extreme end of a horizontal 

 bough of a gum-, tea-, or turpentine-tree, &c., and often in 

 very exposed situations. 



" The eggs are two or three in number, usually the latter ; 

 but in two instances I have found four. They are from one 

 inch and two lines to one inch and four lines in length by 

 from nine lines to one inch in breadth. Their ground-colour 

 varies from a rich cream to a dull white or very light brown, 

 minutely dotted and blotched with umber and blackish brown, 

 and instances with faint lilac spots which appear beneath the 

 surface, all over in some instances, but generally the spots are 

 more numerous at the larger end, where they form an indis- 

 tinct band. 



" The note of this Oriole is very melodious and varied. It 

 may often be seen perched on some shady tree, with its head 

 thrown back, showing to perfection its mottled breast, singing 



