298 Mr. E. P. Ramsay on Birds breeding near Sydney, 



least resistance, while more than one voyager has remarked the 

 slowness with which it sails past. The Petrels I have mentioned 

 sail very nearly in proportion to their size and weight. The 

 Stormy Petrel never sails ; the Cape-Pigeon only for a very 

 short time^ perhaps a minute ; the " Night-Hawk " much longer, 

 often between five and ten minutes; while the Albatros, as I 

 have before mentioned, sails sometimes for an hour, " rising and 

 falling," says Dr. Bennett, " as if some concealed power guided 

 its various motions, without any muscular exertion of its own," 

 but which we must only look upon as another illustration of the 

 small resistance offered by the air to the passage of a properly- 

 shaped heavy body moving through it with a low velocity. 



XXVI. — Notes on Birds breeding in the Neighbourhood of Sydney. 

 By Edward P. Bamsay. 



[Continued from ' The Ibis' for 1864, p. 245.] 



7. Pardalotus striatus (Gould, Birds of Australia, vol. ii. 

 pi. 38)*. 



During my first visit to Cardington, on the Bell River, in the 

 Molong district, I was much surprised and delighted at finding 

 this beautiful species of Pardalote in that neighbourhood. My 



* I at first thought that this species had been P. qffinis. I was led into 

 the mistake by the rarity of P. striatus about Sydney, and also by re- 

 ceiving from the southern colonies specimens of P. qffinis, which may be 

 easily distinguished from P. striatus by having the tip of the spurious 

 wing yellow, and the third primary only being white on the outer web. 

 P. punctatus is the most common species found near Sydney. There is a 

 variety (?) which sometimes, though not very commonly, occurs about 

 Sydney. This has the tip of the spurious wing deep orange, and the lines 

 on the head are more even and more backwardly placed than in the common 

 form. Mr. Gould informs us, he believes these to be young birds ; but I 

 have, however, found them breeding in September and October, and have 

 met with them in flocks of considerable numbers, from which I procured 

 no specimens with the orange tip to the spurious wing, although I have 

 shot over a dozen from the same party. Pardalotus affinis arrives here 

 during the months of August and September, and may be found in com- 

 pany with P. imnctatus, searching for insects and their larvaj among the 

 tops of the young Eucalypti, from the torn edges of the leaves of which 



