BY E. P. RAMSAY, ESQ. 317 



greater part of their food. They are very pleasing and active in 

 their movements, bat very garrulous and noisy, especially when 

 disturbed. Sometimes a troop may be seen gently feeding upon 

 the ground, hopping over it with a quick and easy motion, until 

 some more watchful individual will give the alarm by a hoarse 

 guttural cry, which is immediately taken up by the rest, as they 

 fly off, emitting a garrulous croaking noise, to the nearest tree, 

 settling upon the slanting trunks, hopping upwards by degrees 

 and chasing each other to the ends of the highest boughs, from 

 which they will often fly off, one after the other, to repeat the 

 same actions elsewhere. 



They breed chiefly in September, October, and November, 

 making a large coarse nest of twigs slightly interwoven ; the 

 lower part is much rounded, the upper rather elongated, and 

 sometimes drawn into a neck, the back twigs being brought 

 forward so as almost completely to hide the small opening, which 

 has, as it were, a thatch of twigs over its entrance. Very often 

 too the twigs from the lower side project upwards, rendering it 

 (seemingly) almost impossible for the bird to enter without 

 disarranging them. 



It is lined with a great quantity of grass or stringy bark, with 

 which the eggs are frequently covered when the birds leave their 

 nests. The top of some bushy tree, or the end of some thickly 

 branched bough are the sites chosen for the nests, which, when 

 in the former situations, are placed nearly upright, but when in 

 the latter, upon their sides, being built of course to suit the 

 boughs in which they are placed. 



Several nests may be found within a few yards of each other 

 in the same clump of trees, with birds sitting in each of them. 

 The number of the eggs found in a nest varies from 5 to 10. 

 My brother, Mr. James Ramsay, informs me that he has taken 

 no less than fourteen from one nest, and in these cases believes 

 them to be the joint property of several birds ; the usual number, 

 however, is 5, which are either much elongated or rounded in 

 form, and not un frequently have the ends of equal thickness ; 

 the medium size is one inch in length, by 9 lines in breadth. 

 The ground colour is brownish, yellowish, or purplish-buff, 

 covered with a most peculiar network of veins and hair lines, 



