NESTS AND EGGS OF HONEY-EATERS. 637 
voices of scores of birds. In no place I have ever visited are the 
Bell-birds more numerous than along the wooded slopes and dark 
gullies on the northern shores of Lake King. 
On the subject of the departure of Bell-birds Mr. Issac Batey, 
of Sunbury, writing to Zhe Australasian, states: ‘‘ As regards birds 
that have left here one was the Bell-bird with its clear metallic 
ringing notes. This delightful little bird was very numerous on 
all the creeks years ago, and gradually dwindled away till there 
were only six of them left down the river, 9 miles from our house. 
This was in 1854 when those last of the Mohicans one day came 
flying up stream, and we boys remarked, ‘It is good-bye to the 
Bell-birds,’ a supposition that proved quite correct, as I have not 
seen a single one of them since on the whole length of Jackson’s 
Creek.” Mr, Batey was inclined to the belief that the coming of 
the Butcher-bird, which he said arrived from a westerly point 
about 1850, and was unknown in the district before, had some- 
thing to do with the clearance of the Bell-birds. 
We are aware that if the breeding grounds of birds are inter- 
fered with the birds will desert the place. So it is, I fancy, the 
case with the Bell-birds. They breed near the ground in low scrub 
and saplings underneath their particular food-trees. Therefore, 
when the country became stocked, cattle roamed and camped in 
these. sequestered avenues, and so being disturbed the delightful 
birds departed. 
At Metung, on Lake King, I was encamped for ten days or a 
fortnight when the majority of the Bell-birds appeared to have 
nested very early. In the middle of October, 1881, I found all 
the season’s birds fully fledged and flying with their respective 
parents. I could not find a single nest containing eggs, although 
I found a great number of old nests, sometimes two or more in a 
bush. Any site seemed to be chosen for the nest, from scrub and 
bushes 12 feet high down to the common bracken fern. Some 
of the nests were the crudest and simplest of all Honey-eaters I 
am acquainted with, being constructed of just sufficient materials 
to ensure the safety of the eggs, and suspended by the rim to any 
convenient twig. The nests are sometimes patched and inter- 
woven with portions of moss and lichen. 
However, the same season Mr. R. A. Poole, who lived in the 
locality, secured for me several clutches of the second broods, also 
some of the early ones the following season, which were originally 
described before the Field Naturalists’ Club of Victoria. 
From some interesting observations on the Bell-bird sent to 
The Australasian, February, 1894, by a correspondent (‘‘ A.J.B.”) 
at Metung, I extract the following :—‘ They make their nests 
usually in the fronds of the bracken fern, or in the low Dogwood 
scrub, making little attempt at concealment. I think the Bell- 
birds must lose a lot of their eggs and young ones through snakes, 
