240 sitting;. 



Rah. Port Denison, Wide Bay District, Dawson River, 

 Richmond and Clarence Rivers Districts, New South Wales, 

 Interior, Victoria South Australia. (Mamgay.) 



Sub-Family SITTING. 



Genus SITTELLA, Swainson. 



O-'f SITTELLA CHRYSOPTER A, iai/iam. 



OrEmge-winged Sittella. 



Gould, Handlh. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 373, p. 609. 



The Orange-winged Sittella is universally dispersed over the 

 eastern and south-eastern portions of the continent of Australia. 

 It breeds freely in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and there are 

 several of its singular and beautifully formed nests in the 

 Australian Museum Collection. A nest now before me is placed 

 at the junction of an upright forked branch of a Eucalyptus ; it 

 is of an inverted cone shape, with a cup-like cavity at the top, 

 the rim of the nest being sharp and thin, it is constructed of the 

 downy tufts of Banksia cones interwoven together with cobwebs, 

 but they are entirely hidden by the whole exterior surface being 

 covered with short pieces of bark perpendicularly and neatly 

 fastened on with cobwebs, which gives it a " shingled " appearance 

 and renders it most difficult of detection : the inside is beautifully 

 lined with soft mosses and mouse-eared lichens. It measures 

 exteriorly, four inches and a-half in length, by two inches and a- 

 quarter in diameter; cavity, one inch and seven-eighths in 

 diameter, by one inch and a-quarter in depth. The nest of this 

 bird is usually built on the side of a dry upright forked branch of 

 a Eucalyptus, Casuarina, or Acacia, varying according to the kind 

 of tree in which it is placed, from fifteen to fifty or sixty feet from ' 

 the ground. Eggs three or four in number for a sitting, usually 

 the former. 



