572 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



of Australia, is very abundant on the Cobourg Peninsula, and 

 I have received specimens from the east coast. The total 

 absence of any black mark beneath the lower mandible and 

 the pure whiteness of the throat serve to distinguish it from 

 every other known species ; the colouring of the back, which 

 inclines to rich wax-yellow, is also a character peculiar to it. 

 It is very numerous around the settlement at Port Essington, 

 where it occurs in families of from ten to fifteen in number ; 

 it is of a very pugnacious disposition, often fighting with 

 other birds much larger than itself. While among the leafy 

 branches of the Eucalypti, which are its favourite trees, 

 it frequently pours forth a loud ringing whistling note, a 

 correct idea of which is not easily conveyed. Like its near 

 allies the sexes present no other external difference than the 

 smaller size of the female ; and the young at the same age 

 present a similar style of colouring to that observable in the 

 M. hmulatus and M. cUoropsis, the head and sides of the neck 

 being brown instead of black, and the naked skin above the 

 eye scarcely perceptible. 



The food consists entirely of insects and the pollen of 

 flowers, in searching for which it displays a great variety of 

 positions, sometimes threading the leaves on the smaller 

 branches, and at others clinging to the very extremities of the 

 bunches of flowers. 



The nest, which is always suspended to a drooping branch, 

 and which swings about with every gust of wind, is formed 

 of dried narrow strips of the soft bark of the Melaleuca. The 

 eggs, which are generally two in number, are of a light salmon- 

 colour, blotched and freckled with reddish brown, and are 

 about nine lines long by six lines broad. 



Upper surface greenish wax-yellow \ head black ; crescent- 

 shaped mark at the occiput, chin and all the under surface 

 white ; wings and tail brown margined with greenish wax- 

 yeUow ; irides dull red ; bill brownish black ; legs and feet 

 greenish grey, with a tinge of blue on the front of the tarsi. 



Total length 4-J inches ; biUf ; wing 2J; tail 2J; tarsi -j 



1 1 



6" 



