22 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



alone upon the eggs. This is the specimen marked (c), and is 

 upon the table. Within 2 feet of the nest entrance was a second 

 cave. It was merely 3 inches in the hard soil, and sufficient only 

 to shelter the non-sitting bird during the night. 



The nest-building of the sub-species appears to differ from that of 

 P. ornatus in so far as feathers are not used as a lining to the 

 nest. Further observations will probably show there is no regular 

 difference. The nest, is cup-shaped, with an irregular and loosely 

 constructed outer lip, for there are two. Dried grasses are used 

 externally, and bark internally in part, specially upon the floor. 

 The whole appears in two parts, the inner being a neat and cup- 

 like body placed down in a loose but regular spherical wall of 

 dried grasses, interwoven and towering concavely above the lip 

 of the inner wall by an inch on one side and 1.5 inches on the 

 opposite one. Height of nest on one side 3 inches, and 4 inches 

 upon the opposing wall. Diameters : — Structure, 4.25 inches x 

 3.75 inches; bowl, 2.25 inches; depth of bowl, 1.25 inches. 

 The nest is made to fit in a cavity with domed ceiling and 

 excavated in the hard subsoil at the end of a tunnel. This 

 tunnel is ten inches long, and is drilled with a slight upward 

 tendency, as is usual with most ground-boring birds. The nest 

 entrance is 2 feet below the surface of the ground, and in a 

 creek bank some 9 feet above the bed of a trickling stream, 

 though with the stream not immediately below the entrance. By 

 this arrangement the young birds are fearlessly able to essay their 

 first flight. Judging by the remains of old vegetable matter at the 

 base of the nest, the hollow has been used in a previous year for 

 the purpose of nesting. 



(To be continued.) 



A LEPIDOPTERIST AT GISBORNE AND MACEDON. 



By J. F. Haase. 

 {Read before the Field Naturalists'' Club of Victoria, 12th March, 1900.) 

 At the kind invitation of Mr. and Mrs. Geo. Lyell, I spent a very 

 pleasant time with them at Gisborne during the New Year 

 holidays, though the weather was rather too warm for much walk- 

 ing or collecting. 



On the afternoon of 31st December a short trip was made 

 towards Mt. Gisborne in quest of one of our smallest butterflies, 

 Lyccena serpentata, Mr. Lyell having taken some specimens there 

 twelve months previously. En route a paddock of small stunted 

 wattle trees, Acacia decurrens, engaged our attention, and as large 

 numbers of small black ants were noticed, a diligent search 

 was made for the larvae of the genus Ialmenus, which are always 

 attended by ants, and we were soon rewarded by finding the cater- 

 pillars of a " Blue " new to either of us. 



