U4 INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS 



a field-glass you will find them. For a time the little 

 ventriloquists may lead your eyes in all directions, and 

 finally close above you will be seen that for which you 

 search. 



Mr. Gould writes of P. ornatus having two notes in its 

 call. This phase has three, phonetically " pick-it-up," or 

 " wit-e-chu." Occasionally, I believe, there is a hard-sounding 

 trill, the identity of which I am not sure. Both sexes take 

 part in planning the nest and in the excavation work. 

 While one is labouring at the bowl the other is expelling 

 the material with its feet, little by little, till finally it is 

 forced out beyond the entrance to the ground below. By 

 quietly approaching the tunnel mouth I saw the process in 

 certain of its interesting stages. The male either takes 

 part in incubation, or, which is more unlikely, does all the 

 sitting, because, when I cut away the whole tunnel at a 

 later date (4th November, 1893), I found it alone upon the 

 efras. Within 2 feet of the entrance was a second cave. 

 It was nearly 3 inches in the hard soil, and sufiicient 

 only to shelter the non-sitting bird in the night. The 

 caliology of the sub-species appears to diflfer from that of 

 P. ornatus in so far as feathers are not used as a lining to 

 the nest. Further observations will probably show there is 

 no regular difference. 



Description of nest : Cup-shaped, with an irregular and 

 loosely constructed outer lip, for there are two. Drying 

 grasses are used internally and a soft bark in part, 

 specially upon the floor. The whole appears in two portions, 

 the inner being a neat and cup-like body placed down in a 

 loose but regular spherical wall of dried grasses, interwoven 

 and towering concavely above the lip of the inner wall by 

 an inch on one side and 1-5 inches on the opposite one. 

 Height of nest on one side was 3 inches and 4 inches in the 



