YELLOW-FACED HONEYEATER 337 
and lightwoods. Very often, towards the Otway, 
the nest-tree overhangs a creek. The eggs are of 
two types, buff with a few reddish and grey spots, 
and white thickly spotted with red. 
This species in the bush lives more upon insects 
than upon honey, but when fruit is ripe it becomes 
one of the chief of the feathered foes with which 
the orchardist has to contend. 
It is usually a solitary bird or seen in pairs. On 
September 20th, 191 3, however, Mr. Purnell and I 
saw at least two hundred of these birds together in a 
belt of flowering heath near the Scrubby Creek, 
Anglesea, evidently gorging on nectar, as birds kept 
rising all round us when we were almost treading 
upon them. 
SINGING HONEYEATER 
Meliphaga sonora 
This species resembles the Yellow-faced Honeyeater, 
but is much larger ; it has the space about the eye 
and a line down the sides of the neck black, with pale 
yellow ear-coverts ; the grey throat and breast are 
noticeably striped with brown. 
It would not have occurred to anyone meeting 
this bird in the Geelong district to call it the " Sing- 
ing " Honeyeater, for its notes, though loud and clear, 
could not possibly be called a song. 
Rarely does this bird leave the ti-tree on the coast 
sandhills which is its breeding-haunt and chief resort 
22 
