1 86 BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT OF GEELONG 
is usually a perpendicular-walled hollow in which one 
finds the nest, and there, by the middle of October, 
six pearly-white eggs will be laid on a bed of soft 
decayed wood at the bottom, a couple of feet below 
the point of entry. 
The adult male has the whole under surface rich 
red, feathers of back black, margined with red, shoul- 
ders and cheeks blue, and tail edged with pale blue. 
Authorities have stated that the adult female is 
similarly coloured : but, of many pairs which I have 
found breeding in the Anglesea forest, the female 
has always been clad in a general plumage of green, with 
traces of scarlet and blue here and there ; in no way 
comparable with the splendour of the male, who 
must be seen as he flashes through the sober-coloured 
timber for his beauty to be fully perceived. 
ROSELLA 
Platycercus eximius eximius 
I SOMETIMES wonder whether we should not better 
appreciate the Rosella's rainbow colouring if it were 
a rarer bird. It has, I think, the most varied colour- 
scheme (including, as it does, scarlet, yellow, green, 
and blue, besides black and white) of any Victorian 
bird, and by a fitting natural provision it har- 
monises just as well with the sunlit landscapes which 
it inhabits, as does the richly but more simply coloured 
Red Lory, with the subdued lights of the primeval 
forest. 
