MUSK LORIKEET 
173 
and watch carefully. The leaves move : there is a 
Musk Lorikeet twisting and turning, as happy upside- 
down as any other way, provided he can get the 
last drop of sweet juice from the calyx. In the end 
he usually pulls the flower off, and the carpet of fallen 
blossoms under a tree betrays the presence of the 
busy green pilferers. All the time he is feeding, the 
Musk Lorikeet keeps up an intermittent accompani- 
ment of little gurgles of satisfaction ; in the air 
between two trees he gives full tongue. The general 
plumage is green, with crimson forehead and ear 
coverts. 
All the gum-timbered parts of the district are 
haunts of this Lorikeet, except the messmate scrubs 
west of Torquay, where, for some reason, it is rarely 
found. At Batesford and about Pettavel and Gnar- 
warre it abounds. The great redgums just at the 
foot of the You Yangs, a little to the left as you go 
out from town, are a favourite resort of this bird 
in spring and summer, and I believe it breeds there. 
The nest, which I have seen at Bacchus Marsh in 
October, is a very small hollow in a living branch of 
a gum, going in a foot or more ; the eggs are two 
in number, and, like all parrots', white, though 
sometimes stained with exudations from the decayed 
wood on which they are laid. 
The young from the nest make interesting pets, 
and live quite well in captivity. 
