INSESSORES. 485 



of the interior of the country, and accompanied other stragglers 

 towards the coast. 



" In size and colour P. rufceps is more nearly allied to P. 

 superciliosus than to any other, but it differs from that species 

 in the brown-red colour of the head, in the white bars on the 

 wings, and in the black mark which separates the reddish 

 brown of the flanks from the white of the breast. In our two 

 specimens the sexes have not been ascertained ; one of them 

 is rather less brilliantly coloured than the other." 



Crown of the head and nape chestnut- or brown-red, 

 bounded below by a conspicuous line of white ; lores blackish 

 brown ; behind the eye and ear-coverts brown ; upper part of 

 the back and wing-coverts grey, each feather with a dark 

 brown centre, giving those parts a mottled appearance ; lower 

 part of the back and rump pure dark grey ; greater and 

 lesser wnng-coverts and secondaries tipped with white ; throat, 

 breast, and centre of the abdomen white ; flanks reddish 

 brown, separated from the white of the abdomen by a stripe 

 of black; under tail-coverts brown, spotted with greyish 

 white ; four central tail-feathers dark brown, indistinctly 

 rayed with black; the three outer feathers on each side 

 brown, largely tipped with pure white ; bill and feet blackish 

 horn-colour, the base of the mandibles lighter. 



Fanuly MELIPHAGID^. 



The Honey- eaters, or that group of birds forming the family 

 Meliphagidcs, are unquestionably the peculiar and most strik- 

 ing feature in Australian ornithology. They are in fact to the 

 fauna what the Eucalypti, BanksicB, and Melaleuca are to the 

 flora of Australia. The economy of these birds is so strictly 

 adapted to those trees that the one appears essential to the 

 other ; for what can be more plain than that the brush-like 

 tongue is especially formed for gathering the honey from the 

 flower- cups of the Eucalypti, or that their diminutive stomachs 



