THE AUSTRALIAN DICAUM. 289 
The beautiful little Dic4uUM, although very common throughout the whole 
of Australia, and a remarkably interesting little bird, was, when Mr. Gould 
wrote his animated description, so little known among the colonists that 
there was no popular name for the 
bright little creature. 
This tiny bird is fond of inha- 
biting the extreme summits of the 
tallest trees, and habitually dwells 
at so great an elevation that its 
minute form is hardly perceptible, 
and not even the bright scarlet 
hue of the throat and breast can ¢ 
betray its position to the unaccus- 
tomed eye of a passenger below. 
The flight of the Diczeum is very 
quick and darting, and it makes 
more use of its wings and less of 
its feet than any of the insect- 
hunting birds. The nest is re- 
markably pretty, being woven as 
it were out of white cotton cloth, 
and suspended from a branch as 
if the twigs had been pushed 
through its substance. The pecu- 
liar purse-like shape of the nest 
is shown in the illustration. The 
material of which it is woven is 
the soft cottony down which is 
found in the seed-vessels of many 
piants. The eggs are four or five | 
in number, and their colour is a 
dull greyish white, profusely co- = 
vered with minute speckles of 
brown. 
The head, back, and upper parts 
of the adult male are deep black, 
with a beatiful steely blue gloss, 
the sides are brownish grey, and 
the throat, breast, and under tail- 
coverts are a bright glaring scar- 
let. The abdomen is snowy white, oo — “ES (A 
with the exception of a tolerably Bran. MELE be \- = AN 
large black patch on its centre. AUSTRALIAN DICEUM.—(Diceum hirundi 
The female is more sombre in her naceum.) 
apparel, the head and back being 
of a dull sooty black, and the steel-blue reflection only appearing on the 
upper surface of the wings and tail. The throat and centre of the abdomen 
are buff, the sides are pale greyish brown, and the under tail-coverts scarlet, 
of a less brilliant hue than in the male. In its dimensions the Diczeum is 
hardly so large as our common wren. 
HONEY-EATERS. 
THE true Honey-eaters form a very numerous group of birds, all of which 
are graceful in their forms and pleasing in the colour of their plumage, while 
U 
