probable that, in places where no suitable substitute is to be found, it makes a rather small nest, like all 
the other species of its tribe. It commences breeding early, and rears at least two broods in the year : 
on reference to my note-book, I find I saw fully-fledged young on the 19th of November, and that I took 
many of their eggs in December : they were generally two in number, of a rich salmon colour irregularly 
spotted with rust-brown, one inch and a quarter long by ten and a half lines broad. 
The sexes differ in no respect from each other either in the colouring of the plumage or in the blended 
richness and delicacy of the blue surrounding the eye, to which it is almost impossible for the artist to do 
justice. 
The young assume the plumage of the adult from the nest, but differ from them in having the naked 
face and the base of the bill of a pale yellowish olive, which gradually changes to blue after the first 
season ; this has doubtless occasioned the great number of synonyms quoted above. 
The adults have the crown of the head and back of the neck black ; lower part of the face, chin and 
centre of the chest slaty black ; a crescent-shaped mark at the occiput, a line from the lower mandible 
passing down each side of the neck, and all the under surface pure white ; the upper surface, wings, and 
tail golden olive ; the inner webs of the primaries and all but the two centre tail-feathers brown ; the tail- 
feathers tipped with white ; basal portion of the bill pale bluish grey, passing into blackish horn-colour at 
the tip ; bare space surrounding the eye rich deep blue, becoming of a lighter and greenish hue above the 
eye ; irides yellowish white ; eyelash jet-black ; feet bluish grey. 
The young of the first autumn have the eye dark olive with a black lash, and the denuded parts sur- 
rounding it, the base of the under mandible and the gape greenish brimstone-yellow ; nostrils and culmen 
near the head yellowish horn-colour, passing into blackish brown at the tip ; feet very similar to those of 
the adult. 
The Plate represents a male and female of the natural size, on a branch of one of the lofty Eucalypti of 
the river Hunter. 
