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THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA 



and adopt the quaintest but never ungraceful modes of sus- 

 pension in order to enable them to probe into the tubular or 

 cup-shaped blossoms. The protractile and brush-like tongue 

 enables them to extract the honey from the many Eucalypts, 

 Tea-trees, Bottle-brushes, Banksias and. Heaths, and the poise 

 of the birds during the operation is graceful and easy. With 



D. Le Sotief. 

 Honey-eaters Feeding in Flight, Aviary, Melbourne Zoo. 



the honey they take the pollen, and sometimes the buds of the 

 flowers. A large proportion of the food of nearly all the species 

 consists of insects, which they pick out of the flowers, or off the 

 twigs, more rarely on the wing. Hence, though a few are fruit 

 lovers, and in consequence may be orchard robbers, on the whole 

 the family is of considerable service to the agriculturalist. The 

 notes of most of the Honey-eaters are pleasing, and those of the 



