PTILOTIS. 205 



The months of September, October, November, and December 

 constitute the breeding season of this species. 



Sab. Victoria and South Australia, West and South-West 

 Australia. (JRamsay.') 



^ PTILOTIS PLUMULA, GouU. 



Plttmed Ptilotis. 

 Gould, Mandlh. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 315, p. 516. 



"The small, elegant, cup-shaped nest of this species, is suspended 

 from a slender horizontal branch, frequently so close to the ground 

 as to be reached by the hand ; it is formed of dried grasses lined 

 with soft cotton-like buds of flowers. The breeding season 

 continues from October to January ; the eggs being two in number, 

 ten lines long by seven lines broad, of a pale salmon colour, with 

 a zone of deeper tint at the larger end, and the whole freckled 

 with minute spots of a still darker hue." (Gould, Sandbk. Bds. 

 Aust, Vol. i., p. 516.) 



Hab. Port Darwin and Port Essington, Gulf of Carpentaria, 

 Interior, Victoria and South Australia, West and South- West 

 Australia. (Ramsay.) 



^ « - PTILOTIS PENICILLATA, Gould. 



White-pluraed Honey-eater. 

 Gould, Bandbh. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 318, p. 519. 2Z~ ^-C 

 This is the most common species of Honey-eater in the 

 neighbourhood of Melbourne, in Victoria, and Wellington and 

 Dubbo, in New South Wales, and is equally plentiful throughout 

 South Australia. The nest of this species is a neat cup-shaped 

 structure, outwardly composed of grasses, spiders' nests, and the 

 woolly portions of the dead flowers of the " Cape weed," lined inside 

 with the same material and horsehair ; in some instances a few . 

 feathers being worked into the side ; it is usually suspended by 



