BY E. P. RAMSAY, ESQ. 315 



nests, so that by these means I have secured correct and unfaded 

 colors. As far as I am aware, none of these have been figured 

 before in any publication ; and even if they have, we know that 

 the descriptions and coloring must have been taken from faded 

 specimens, unless the author has taken the same precaution and 

 had them painted within a few days after they were laid. 



Some of our species breed very early, commencing in July, 

 and often continue until December. The early breeding birds, 

 such as some of the Acantkizce and Eopsaltrice, and many of 

 the Fly-catchers, have their second brood in October, and very 

 often a third in December. So that if the eggs of our Austra- 

 lian birds are few in number, they certainly make up for it in 

 the number of broods which they have ; I have been informed 

 by some of my old school-fellows, that they have taken no less 

 than eight nests from one pair of birds during the season, as 

 soon as one nest was taken, the birds constructing another, and 

 so on, until the birds had built eight separate nests, and laid 

 fifteen eggs. And I have myself, in the case of what we con- 

 sidered rare birds, taken four or five nests from the same pair. 

 A curious fact relating to some species, is, that they are found 

 breeding before their plumage reaches the colour of the adult 

 birds. Whether these are the young in their first year, or 

 whether these species take two or three years before arriving 

 at the plumage of the adult, I have not yet determined ; from 

 the plumage alone, one would judge them to be the young in 

 their first year. I am not alluding to such birds as the males 

 of the Satin and Regent birds, &c., which we well know take 

 t\vo or three years before appearing in the livery of the adult, 

 but to certain species of the genera Acanthiza and Melithreptus, 

 the generality of which obtain their livery at the end of the 

 first year, but which I have found breeding while yet in the first 

 year's plumage. 



Much perplexity has arisen on account of naturalists finding 

 young birds breeding while in first year's plumage, supposing, 

 naturally enough, that they were adult birds, and consequently 

 considering them as new species. 



