WHITE-SHAFTED FANTAIL. 227 



example of the pensiles. The materials of which it is made 

 are grass and wool, intermingled with the pure white cotton 

 of certain flowers. As the reader may see, by reference to the 

 illustration, it is hung from a very slender twig, and only sus- 

 pended at opposite extremities of the rim, the tree selected being 

 the myall, or weeping acacia. The nest is rather small in pro- 

 portion to the bird, and is very deep, so that when the mother is 

 sitting on her eggs, or brooding over her young, she is obliged to 

 pack herself away very carefully, her tail projecting at one side 

 of the nest and her head at the other. 



OuE last example of the Australian pensile nests is one which 

 is made by the White-shafted Fantail {Rhijddura albica), 

 a native of Van Diemen's Land and the southern and western 

 portions of Australia. It is rather a pretty -bird, being boldly 

 marked with black and white, and is remarkable for the fact 

 that the shafts and tips of the tail-feathers are pure white, the 

 central feathers only excepted. It derives its popular name 

 of Fantail from its habit of spreading its tail like a fan while 

 descending, and as the tail is very broad, the action has a really 

 remarkable effect. 



The nest of this bird is of a figure not very easy to describe, 

 but an idea of it may be formed from a common wine-strainer, 

 with a very long and straight spout. The nest is attached to a 

 branch rather below the middle of the cup, so that the long 

 spout hangs down like a tail, quite independent of the bough. 

 What can be the object of this appendage no one knows, and 

 there is no purpose that it can even be imagined to fulfil, except 

 perhaps that it may serve as a conductor. Like many other 

 pensile nests, it is placed at a low elevation, and hung over 

 water. Sometimes, however, it is found in a forest where no 

 stream runs, but even in such a case it is suspended not many 

 feet from the ground, though high enough to guard it against 

 the attacks of any ordinary foe. 



The materials of which the nest is made are the delicate 

 inner bark of the gum-tree, together with mosses, and the soft 

 down obtained from the tree-fern. These substances are inter- 

 woven \vith tough spiders'-web, which has the effect of binding 

 them firmly together. This remarkable nest is mentioned in the 

 present place because its peculiar shape bears some resemblance 



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