OPEN NESTS 185 



nest of this species the eggs can easily be seen through 

 the bottom from below. The nest of the Graceful 

 Honey-eater {Ptilotis gracilis) is generally placed 

 amongst the leaves at the end of a branch of some 

 densely foliaged tree. The tiny cup-shaped nest has 

 the foundation chiefly composed of flat pieces of 

 paper-bark and moss, the upper portion being 

 finished ofl^ with green moss and shreds of bark, the 

 whole being covered and bound together with spiders' 

 webs, whilst the inside of the cup is warmly and 

 thickly lined with down from the native cotton 

 plant. The nest of another species in the same 

 genus, the Yellow-spotted Honey-eater (P. notata) is 

 very similar, but is a little more loosely put together, 

 and the exterior is principally composed of shreds of 

 a coarse grass, intermixed with bits of bark, and lightly 

 covered with web ; the lining, however, is the same, 

 the glossy white down from cotton pods. The 

 generally domed or porched nests of the Sun-birds 

 (Nectariniidas),^ and those of the Flower-peckers 

 (Dicasidae), must be reserved for the following 

 chapters, but mention may here be made of the 

 dainty cup-shaped nests of the White-eyes (Zoster- 

 opidse), which are slung hammock-wise to forking 

 twigs at the extremities of branches or placed in 

 upright crotches, and made of similar materials to 



^ The nest of the Indian ^thopyga longirostris, for instance, is 

 cup-shaped and attached to the under side of some leaf by a series 

 of stitches or punctures, the material of the rim being used for threads. 



