September, and generally selects a hole in a large gum-tree for the purpose ; making no nest, but depo- 
siting its beautiful pearl-white eggs, which are one inch and nine lines long by one inch and five lines 
broad, on the decomposed wood at the bottom of the hole. When there are young ones in it, it defends its 
breeding-place with great courage and daring, darting down upon any intruder who may attempt to ascend 
the tree, and inflicting severe and dangerous blows with its pointed bill. 
The sexes present so little difference in the colouring of their plumage, that they are scarcely distin- 
guishable from each other ; neither do the young at a month old exhibit any great variation from the adult, 
the only difference being that the markings are somewhat darker and the brown more generally diffused. 
It bears confinement remarkably well, and is one of the most amusing birds for the aviary with which I 
am acquainted : examples have been brought alive to England ; one lived for several years in the Gardens 
of the Zoological Society of London, and at the moment I am writing (April 1843) a fine individual brought 
from New South Wales by Mr. Yaldwyn, is now living at his seat at Blackdown in Sussex, where it attracts 
the attention of every one by its singular actions and extraordinary notes, which are poured forth as freely 
as in its native wilds. 
Forehead brown, each feather with a stripe of blackish brown down the centre ; crown of the head, 
lores, ear-coverts, and a broad band passing round the occiput blackish brown ; space between the crown 
of the head and the band encircling the occiput, and the back of the neck buff, crossed by fine irregular 
lines of dark brown ; back and wings brownish black ; the wing-coverts and rump tipped with verditer 
green ; primaries white at the base, black for the remainder of their length, and stained with green on their 
outer margins immediately behind the white ; upper tail-coverts blackish brown, crossed by several broad 
irregular bands of rusty red ; tail brownish black, tipped with white, the white increasing in extent as the 
feathers recede from the centre ; the central feathers crossed near the tip with rusty red ; the lateral 
feathers with brownish black, the bands being very narrow near the tip, and gradually increasing in breadth 
as they approach the base, where the white interspaces also become tinged with rusty red ; under surface 
pale buffy white, crossed by fine irregular freckled markings of dark brown ; upper mandible brownish 
black ; under mandible pale buff ; feet olive ; irides dark brown ; eyelash olive-brown. 
The figures represent a male and two young of the natural size. 
