160 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



NOTES. 



White-throated Fly-eater. — On the i8th October a male 

 specimen of the White-throated Fly-eater, Gerygone alhigularis, 

 was shot at Rutherglen. An aUied species, Pseudogerygone 

 culicivora, the Southern Fly-eater, is also in the district. This 

 latter appears to be restricted to a patch of timber about too 

 acres in extent, consisting for the most part of box saplings, small 

 Murray pines, and bull-oak trees. The birds build their nests in 

 the saplings, at heights varying from 2 to lo feet from the ground. 

 Some are very neat and pretty structures, built after the fashion 

 of the Gerygones, with a hood over the entrance, and a long, tail- 

 like appendage. The tail measures from 3 to 5 inches, while the 

 total length of the nest is 9 or 10 inches. Several nests have 

 been taken containing clutches of three eggs each, two being also 

 the depository for the speckled egg of the Narrow-billed Cuckoo, 

 Chalcococcyx basalts. Both the male and the female Southern 

 Fly-eaters are songsters. — A. Campbell, jun. Rutherglen, 

 5th November, 1899. 



Flora of Mt. Kosciusko. — " Our steep track through the 

 belt of Snow Gums, Eucalyptus coriacea, was a struggle, but the 

 sight of one plant therein will never be effaced from my memory. 

 I allude to Dianella tasmanica. This plant occurred in large 

 patches all through the scrub, and it was, without exception, 

 the handsomest plant we saw. Its blue flowers were borne in 

 the greatest profusion, while its leaves were up to six feet long and 

 two or three inches wide. We feasted our eyes upon it, and its 

 abundance was the more remarkable considering the paucity of 

 blue flowers of any kind on the mountain. Other gems met with 

 there were Glaytonia australasica, bearing beautiful white flowers ; 

 Stackhousia pulvinaris, emitting a perfume both powerful and 

 sweet ; Epilohium confer 1 if olium, a beautiful glaucous-leaved 

 plant, bearing a profusion of creamy-white flowers ; Nevlera 

 depressa, a dainty little plant, bearing a profusion of reddish 

 berries (often seen in cultivation); Raoidia catipes, the Aus- 

 tralian Edelweiss, one of the daintiest of the alpine flora. Then 

 the Kosciusko plateau is the place for buttercups. The largest, 

 Ranunculus anemoneus, is a white-flowering species, with flowers 

 two or three inches in diameter, while the smallest, R. millani, a 

 dainty little plant, is often less than an inch in height, and 

 present in innumerable quantities. The sight of the dwarf and 

 spodessly white Caltha introloha growing on the fringe of the 

 snowdrift, or actually under the snow, is very beautiful." — From 

 "A Second Contribution towards a Flora of Mt. Kosciusko," 

 by J. H. Maiden, F.L.S., Government Botanist of New South 

 Wales. 



