NEST OF PETRCECA LEGGII — NORTH. 
89 
Note on a NEST of PETRCECA LEGGII , Sharpe. 
The Scarlet-breasted Robin . 
By Alfred J. North, F.L.S. 
(Ornithologist to the Australian Museum.) 
[Plate XX.] 
Mr. Joseph Gabriel, F.L S., one of the most enthusiastic members 
of the Field Naturalists’ Club of Victoria, has recently forwarded 
me a beautiful nest of the Scarlet-breasted Robin, built in a very 
well concealed situation. The nest was found by Mr. Gabriel at 
Bayswater, Victoria, on the 15th Novr., 1894, and is formed in a 
small cavity burnt out of the thin stem of a “ Mountain Musk,” 
Olearia argophylla , at an elevation of about six feet from the 
ground. The dimensions of this hollow in the stem of the tree, 
from its base to where it narrows at the top, were six inches 
and a half in height by three inches and a half in width on one 
side, and four inches and a half by three inches and a half on the 
other; and in this snug recess the nest is ensconced. It is com- 
posed of very line strips of the inner bark of a Eucalypt, inter- 
mingled with the soft downy covering of the freshly budded 
fronds of a tree fern, and thickly and warmly lined inside with 
opossum fur ; the rim and one side of the nest are ornamented 
with cobwebs collected from a burnt tree and to which still 
adhere small fragments of charred wood, making the nest assimi- 
late closely to its surroundings. On one side of the cavity only 
a small portion of the rim of the nest is visible. The figure on 
the plate represents the nest as seen from above and looking into 
it: as viewed laterally very little of it is discernible. Eventually 
the nest, which has been presented to the Trustees, and contains 
three eggs of the usual type, will be mounted and placed in the 
Group Collection illustrating the life-history of our Australian 
birds. 
The situation of the nest of this species is varied ; sometimes 
it is boldly placed on a horizontal branch or in the forked limb 
of a low tree, but at all times the exterior portion of the nest is 
made to closely resemble its environment. In South Gippsland 
1 have frequently found the nest of this Robin by tapping on the 
hollow trunk of some burnt out giant of the forest, or by watching 
the bird fly into one of the apertures made by fire in the bole of 
a large tree. 
