THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST 127 



DESCRIPTION OF THE NEST AND EGGS OF THE 

 PAINTED HONEY-EATER, ENTOMOPHILA PIGTA, 



Gould. 



By Alfred J. North, C.M.Z.S., 

 Ornithologist, Australian Museum, Sydney. 

 This Honey-eater is one of the most beautiful, and undoubtedly 

 the rarest, species of the family Meliphagidae found in Australia. 

 It is an inhabitant of the inland portions of New South Wales, 

 but during a residence of a quarter of a century in the western 

 district of the colony, the stronghold of this species, only six 

 examples were noted by that acute observer, the late Mr. K. H. 

 Bennett. In a period of fourteen years two specimens in the 

 flesh have been received by the Trustees of the Australian 

 Museum — one obtained near Dubbo, and the other at Uralla, in 

 the New England district. 



Gould found a nest of this Honey-eater over sixty years ago, on 

 the 5th September, containing two nearly fledged young, but 

 hitherto, so far as I am aware, the eggs of this species have not 

 been taken. 



A nest of this species procured on the 23rd December, 1899, 

 by Dr. George Hurst, at White Rock, near Bathurst, New South 

 Wales, and presented by him to the Trustees of the Australian 

 Museum, is one of the most flimsy specimens of bird architecture 

 I have seen. It is cup-shaped, and formed almost entirely of 

 fine yellowish-brown fibrous rootlets, with a very slight addition 

 of spider's web. The sides of it are attached to the thin, drooping, 

 thread-like leaves of a Casuarina, and it is so loosely constructed 

 that daylight is as easily seen through it as the interspaces of the 

 surrounding leaves. Externally it measures 2}^ inches in dia- 

 meter by 2 inches in depth, the inner cup measuring 2^ inches 

 in diameter by 1^ inches in depth. It was built in a tree on 

 the bank of the Macquarie River at a height of 30 feet from the 

 ground, and contained two eggs, one slightly incubated, the other 

 addled. The eggs are oval in form, and somewhat compressed 

 towards the smaller end, the shell being close-grained and its 

 surface smooth and almost lustreless. The ground colour is a 

 pale salmon-red, which is thickly freckled and spotted with darker 

 shades of red. In one specimen the ground colour is slightly 

 darker, and the markings larger and confluent on the thicker end, 

 where they form a broken zone, a few large spots also being 

 intermingled with the smaller ones on the thinner end. On the 

 other specimen the markings are slightly larger on the thicker 

 end, where also a few almost obsolete spots of dull violet-grey are 

 visible. Length (A), 0.78 x 0.59 inch; (B), 0.77 x 0.57 inch. 

 These eggs resemble in colour a variety of those of the Yellow- 

 faced Honey-eater, Ptilotis chrysops, Latham. 



[Dr. Hurst had never observed the Painted Honey-eater in the 

 Bathurst district prior to finding the above described nest and eggs.] 



