THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
leaves on the outside. Lined with soft bark. Outside 6 inches long by 3 wide. 
A nest from Melville Island collected on the 12th of January, 1912, 10 miles S.E. of 
Snake Bay, contained one Honey-eater’s and two Cuckoo’s eggs. The Honey-eater’s 
egg was perfectly fresh, the Cuckoo’s showed signs of incubation. This nest was 
built in a paper-bark sapling leaning out over Jessie Creek. The nest was suspended 
from the end of a limb at a height of three feet from the water. The materials were 
broad and fine strips of paper-bark lightly fastened together with cobwebs. The 
lining was very soft pieces of the same materials. Dimensions : 4| by 2f by 8 
inches deep, inside 2£ by 2 by 4 inches deep. The parent was seen leaving the nest. 
Another collected on the 10th of January, 1912, 10 miles S.E. of Snake Bay, 
contained two Honey-eater’s and one Cuckoo’s egg. The nest was suspended 
from a pendant branch of a paper-bark tree growing on the bank of Jessie Creek. 
The nest was about two feet from the water. 
Another collected on the 12th of January, 1912,10 miles S.E. of Snake Bay, contained 
two Honey-eater’s and one Cuckoo’s egg in clutch, apparently C. rufulus . This 
nest was suspended from a pendant branch of a paper-bark tree growing on the 
bank of Jessie Creek ; nest limb hung over the water. The nest was about three feet 
from the water, was built of broad and fine strips of paper-bark, fastened together 
with a few strips of paper-bark. The lining was broad soft strips of paper-bark. 
The leaves of the branch were built into the nest. Dimensions outside: 5 by 4 by 8 
inches deep, 2£ by 2 by 4 inches deep. 
Nggs. Three to four eggs usually form the clutch, though sometimes only two eggs are 
met with. A clutch of four eggs taken on the Macarthur River, Northern Territory, 
on the 12th of January, 1914, is of a white ground-colour, spotted and blotched with 
light and dark reddish-brown, particularly at the larger end of each egg. The 
clutch measures 17-18 by 13-14 mm. Swollen ovals in shape ; surface of shell 
rather smooth, but possessing very little gloss. 
Nest. A bulky 7 dome-shaped structure, composed of paper-bark ( Melaleuca) and hung 
from the end of a twig, and generally over water. 
Breeding-months . October to January (to May). 
This is another of Gilbert’s discoveries in the Port Essington district, 
and Gould’s notes read : “ All the specimens hitherto collected of this species 
have been obtained from the Cobourg Peninsula, where, according to Gilbert, 
it is far from being common, for in his notes he says : ‘ I only once observed 
it near the settlement, and once again met with it on the neck of the peninsula 
near the mainland. Its favourite haunts appeared to be the upper branches 
of the Melaleuca , from the blossoms of which it collects its food. In both 
instances I observed small families of about twelve in number. Its note is 
a sharp, shrill, piping call, very rapidly repeated. . . Its food consists of 
insects generally, the pollen and occasionally the buds of flowers.’ ” 
Mr. J. P. Rogers wrote me from Melville Island: “ Nov. 20th, 1911, 
Cooper’s Camp. Up to this date only two of this species seen here, both in 
the open forest near the foreshore ; up to the 16th Dec. this species was very 
rare. Between the 26th of December, 1911, and January 14th, 1912, I was 
on the north side of the island. Here this species was very numerous and 
many nests were found. There birds were all on the creeks or in the large 
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