THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
December. I have also seen this species throughout Kangaroo Island, and 
there, also like the mainland subspecies, it hkes the thickly wooded parts.” 
Mr. A. H. Mattingley has sent me the following interesting items: 
“ Young are born naked and blind, the skm fleshy colour, two black spots 
in region of tongue and a large black blotch or patch on back of roof of mouth 
and throat. Colour of interior of mouth bright yellow. Adults feed yomig 
every two minutes and when older about every ten minutes with diptera, 
hymenoptera and lepidoptera, as well as scale insects and honey. Both 
parents feed young, female more often than male, and both are very tame 
while doing so. The young when a week old are only partly covered with 
down and leave the nest in eighteen or twenty days’ time. The young, of 
which there are two or three, are fed one after the other with great rapidity, 
each young one getting its share every visit of the parent, when the food is 
placed down the thi-oat. Both adults have a loud pleasing note and call 
‘ Egypt,’ ‘ Egypt,’ with a glucking twang.” 
IVIi*. F. E. Howe also wrote me: “I first made the acquaintance of tliis 
form at Ringwood, Sept. 11th, 1904. We were working down a gully when 
I noticed a nest with the female sitting. She was very confiding and almost 
allowed me to touch her and as she flushed disclosed three yoimg ones. Her 
cries soon brought her beautiful mate to the nest and allowed us minutely 
to examine liim. They are early breeders and nests ai’e found as early as 
August. A favourite site is in the top of sword grass and nests have also 
been seen in the mimosa and tea-tree. The clutch seems to vary from tw'O to 
four, but two seems to be the usual sitting. The call ‘ Egypt,’ with the 
accent on the last syUable, is the note usually heard, but on one occasion a 
bird low down m the scrub was heard to utter quite a variety of pleasant 
notes that were ventriloquial. We have noticed that the female alone 
midertakes the task of incubatmg the eggs and that the period is about sixteen 
days. The young are bom blind and featherless ; the gape is yellow and the 
colom* of the mouth is of the same hue, but a round black spot appears on 
the bottom as weU as the roof of the mouth. The parents appear to gather 
food with wliich to feed the young from the mistletoe (Lormithus)” 
IVli’. Frank Littler has written me from Tasmania: “ This species 
frequents thick dense tracts of forest, preferably near water. The food 
consists of insects and the pollen of various flowering slnubs and plants. The 
breeding-months are from August to December.” 
Ingle states that it is common m South Gippsland, breeding early in August 
and September and disappearing before December, retmning about March. 
Miss J. A. Fletcher has recorded that “ the young just born were blmd 
and naked except for tufts of gi’eyish down on top of head, tips of wings and 
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