102 MusoiOAPiDa;. 



with light chestnut and purplish-brown ; eight lines and a-half 

 long by six lines and a-half broad." {Gould, Handhk. Bds. Aust., 

 Vol. i., p. 276.) 



Hub. Victoria and South Australia, Tasmania. (Ramsay.) 



3 - * PETRCEC A LEGGII,. Sharps. 



(P. multicolor, Vigors and Horsfield.) 

 Scarlet-breasted Bobiu. 

 Gould, Handbh. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 165, p. 279. 



This bird is universally dispersed throughout Queensland, New 

 South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania. It arrives 

 in Victoria about the latter end of June, and commences to breed 

 early in September and continues to the end of December. 



On the partially cleared land in the dense forests of South 

 Gippsland I have often found the nest of this species by seeing the 

 bird fly into one of the huge blackened hollow trunks of the 

 Eucalyptus that has been destroyed by iire ; the nest is placed 

 about six or seven feet from the ground on a projecting piece of 

 roughened and charred wood, it is composed of strips of bark, 

 grasses, and mosses, securely held together with cobweb, and lined 

 with hair, fur, feathers &c., and sometimes with the soft downy 

 fibre of the inner bark of the tree-fern (Bicksonia antarctica); it 

 is also placed on the horizontal branch, or bole of a tree after the 

 manner of the Artamus family. Eggs three or four in number 

 for a sitting. 



Var. A. Ground colour bufiy-white thickly freckled and spotted 

 all over the surface of the shell with purplish-brown, wood-brown, 

 and bluish-grey markings. Length (A) 0-72 x 0-6 inch ; (B) 0-74 

 X 0-91 inch; (0) 0-72 x 0-62 inch. Taken by Dr. Ramsay on 

 Ash Island, October 1860. 



Var. B. Ground colour, when just taken greenish-white, fading 

 to a dull white after being emptied of their contents and kept for 

 some time, minutely freckled and spotted with pale umber, 



