Dove, Cuckoo Notes from Tasmania. 



r Emu 



L2nd Oct. 



experiences are given : — " We found the nest of a Flame -breasted 

 Robin {Petroica phoenicea) in a very unusual place as far as our 

 experience goes ; it was in a large gum tree, green excepting the 

 top of the main stem, which had been broken off and was partly 

 dry. We saw the birds about the tree for several days, but 

 could not find the nest, never thinking it would be so high, until 

 one day I noticed the male fly up to the splintered top. We got 

 ropes and pulled the lightest member of our party up 40 feet 

 from the ground, and he saw that the nest was built in the split 

 top. It contained a young Palhd Cuckoo, and two of the Robins' 

 eggs were lying in the splintered wood. We got a snapshot of 

 another Pallid Cuckoo that had left the nest and was being fed 

 by a pair of Strong-billed Honey-eaters and by a male Blue Wren. 

 It often happens that a fully-fledged Cuckoo will sit on a limb 

 and call to every bird that comes near, and, strange as it may 

 seem, they frequently come to feed it. At Russell's Plains we 

 saw a Garrulous Honey-eater fly down to feed a Fan-tailed Cuckoo 

 when its own brood were in a tree close by. The eggs of these 

 Cuckoos are often found in Sericornis nests close to the ground ; 

 we have never found them very high." 



I may say that the observation as to an egg of the host being 

 removed and one of the parasite put in its stead coincides with 



Nest of Yellow-faced Honey-eater that previously contained two 

 eggs of the Honey-eater. It now contains one of the Honey-eater 

 and one of the Pallid Cuckoo. Eastern Gippsland. 



PHOTO. BY J, 



STUART DOVE. F.Z.S., R. 



something which came under my notice during a sojourn in East 

 Gippsland, Victoria. A nest of the Yellow-faced Honey-eater 

 {Ptilotis chrysops) was built in a hedge of Kangaroo Island Acacia, 

 and contained one egg when found ; next day two eggs ; the third 

 moming one of the Honey-eaters' eggs had disappeared, and an 



