BY E. P. RAMSAY, ESQ. 329 



fastened on with cobweb, and rendered so like the bark of the 

 tree, that it is no easy task, for one who is unacquainted with its 

 habits, to discover it. The eggs are two in number; but I 

 remember two instances in which we found three in a nest : this, 

 however, is very rarely the case. In length, they are from 8| to 

 10 lines by 6 to 7| lines in breadth. They vary considerably 

 in colour, some being of a beautiful bluish-green, with a zone of 

 brownish-purple and greyish-lilac blotches round the centre, and 

 a few dots over the rest of the surface ; in others the 

 spots are dispersed equally over the whole. . As the eggs 

 fade, the ground colour becomes very pale, and the markings 

 turn to dull reddish-brown. This species has two, and sometimes 

 three broods in the year. The peculiar instinct which birds have, 

 of ornamenting the outside of their nests with small scales of 

 bark and lichen which grow upon the same trees, is beautifully 

 illustrated in not only the nest of the present species, but also in 

 those of many other Australian birds : as in that of the Yellow- 

 breasted Robin (E. australis), and more particularly in those 

 of the Nut-hatch (Sittella chrysoptera), which are not only 

 ornamented on the outside with scales of bark, from the same 

 or similar branches, to which they are fastened, but the inside is 

 carefully lined with small pieces of the mouse-eared lichen 

 so arranged as to bear a very close resemblance to the eggs. The 

 shortest and easiest way of finding the nest of either the Titlark 

 or Nuthatch is to watch the birds. Any one accustomed to 

 birds'-nesting can tell in a very short time, whether the birds 

 have a nest or not, and when this fact is settled, nothing is 

 easier than to watch the birds until they go to it. 



