KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 52. N:o 17. 27 
Between them it fixed the first straws for the framework which was now to be built. 
From this the bird twined a hanging basket with thin meshes, to which it then 
attached root-fibres, horsehair and grass-stalks. These fibres and straws were not 
laid transversely as in a basket but in a ring around the walls of the nest. Outside 
the material was fixed by spiders” webs (see fig. 9). 
From the last mentioned type differ, or most 
probably, nests has been developed by greater 
technical skill of building. 
A nest that I obtained in Dampier land 
showed traces of a higher form (see fig. 10). In 
this case a suspender had occurred, to which the 
nets itself was attached. 
By this addition the more closed or covered 
over and hanging form of nest is a natural result. 
The nest had also an arched superstructure, but 
very low, however, which really seemed to have 
emerged more from a covering part of the suspen- 
der itself than as a result of skill in nest-building 
in this direction. A considerable step forward in 
nest-building skill has been taken by the species, 
including only a few of all the Australian Me- 
liphagide, which have still more suspending bulky 
nests with side-entrance. This beautiful nests are 
superior to those mentioned before, merely from 
the fact that they are built out from a single point 
of the twig. Different forms of such nests, in 
which different degrees of skill have been attained, 
I have, however, not had an opportunity of getting 
to know, but I found a very fine specimen in the 
nest of Glyciphila fasciata (see fig. 11). 
By way of parenthesis it may be mentioned 
that other specimens of the same genus build a 
cupshaped nest. 
The nest was found at the so-called Soil- 
creek in the neighbourhood of Meda. It was built 
on a high Eucalyptustree in such a manner that it was hanging above the water 
on the point of a branch, and could be got down only by my swimming in the water 
and cutting off the point of the branch with an apparatus made for that purpose. 
On a coarse short string, made of stalks and particles of bark, the whole well twisted 
around the point of the branch, the oval nest was hanging like a plummet on a 
lead-line. The entrance was on the upper half of the nest, which was joined together 
chiefly by straws and particles of outer bark. 
Fig. 11. Nest of Glyciphila fasciata from 
Meda, Kimberley. 
