THE BIRDS OF THE FIJI ISLANDS. 37 



solitary nestlings, and saw so many family parties, that there can be no 

 doubt of the fact, which, so far as I can call to mind, is unique among the 

 Insessores. We w^ere a month or three weeks too late for their eggs, and too 

 early for the second hatch, w^hich I suspect they have, as the forest was full of 

 young birds. The nests had chiefly fully fledged young ones ; and only one 

 had a single fresh egg ; off" this last I shot the female. This nest w^as built 

 at the forked extremity of a thin horizontal twig, about four feet from the 

 ground (none that we saw were out of reach of our hands), composed of 

 fibres and the macerated strands of a species of flag, and lined with feathers, 

 among which I detected the brilliant yellow breast-plumes oi Pachycephala 

 torquata (to which they seemed partial) and those of Carpophaga latrans. 

 The structure, though light, is tolerably thick ; diam. 3'^ 9^'' outside, 1'' 9''' 

 inside ; depth 2'' 9''\ The eggs have a pale pink ground, generally coloured 

 with dark pink spots of various sizes, the colour of which seems to have run at 

 the edges. Another egg was almost white, with minute pink freckles ; but it 

 was addled, and, I think, a season old, and consequently bleached. Axis (of 

 the good egg) l\ diam. 9^^\ 



" In habits Lamprolia victorice shows considerable affinity to Thamnobia, 

 in its jerky motions, mode of flight, clambering up the thick (or thin) lianas, 

 drooping its wings and elevating its tail. My son saw one clinging upright 

 to a tree and digging into an ants' nest ; one had its mouth full of white 

 ants, destined probably for its young. It has a variety of cries, but no song 

 that we heard ; it chattered defiance at us if near its nest, and was not at 

 all shy. At other times it uttered a stridulous cry. The mouth of the young 

 bird is bright yellow inside. When flying through the forest its course is 

 pretty straight and swift, not jerky or undulating ; it rarely, if ever, ascends 

 trees of any altitude, always keeping to the undergrowth." 



VOL. II. G 



