, WHITE-BEARDED HONEY-EATER. 
sides of body dusky ; axillaries and under wing-coverts whitish ; thighs rust-brown ; 
under-surface of flight-quDls dark brown with pale margins ; lower aspect of tail 
similar to its upper-surface. Eyes dark grey, feet and bill black. Collected at 
Point Lincobi, Eyre’s Peninsula, South Australia, on the 23rd of August, 1911. 
Nestling, Top of head, middle of back, rump, and upper tail-coverts, and tail dark smoke- 
brown ; upper wing-coverts and flight-quills blackish fringed on the outer w'ebs 
of the primaries with yellow and with white on the secondaries; throat dark lead- 
gi*ey ; fore-neck white witli wide blaoldsh shaft-streaks ; sides of body similar; 
thighs dusky-brown ; under-surface of flight-quills dark brown; under tail-coverts 
grey. Ej'ds gre\ish-black, feet pale brown. Collected at Coonalpyn, OO-miles 
Desert, South Axistralia, on the J7th of May, 1911. 
Eggs. Two to throe eggs form the clutch. A clutch of three eggs taken at Rose Bay, 
Sydney, on the 22nd of January, 1904, is of a pinkish-buff, becoming darker about 
the larger end. Spotted (chiefly at the larger end) with dark reddisli-chestnut, 
and here and tliere scattered markings of slaty-grey. Swollen ovals in shape. 
Surface of shell fine and smooth, and verj' glossy. 20-21 by 15 mux. 
Nest. Cup-shaped, bulk}' for so small a nest, placed in a bottle-brush or other tree. 
Composed of dried grass intermixed and lined with the silky parts of seeding plants. 
Outside measurements, 2 to 3 inches deep by about 4 ynde. Inside, 1 ^o H inches 
deep by about 2 wide. (Tasmania.) 
An open cup-shaped structure, composed of strips of bark, grasses and twigs, 
and lined inside with soft vegetable matter, usually the brown velvety portions 
removed from the dxy flowering cones of the Bush Honeysuckle or Bottle Brush 
(Banksia), a number of species of which grow on the coast. Dimensions over all: 
3| to 44 inches across, by 24 to 4 inches in depth. Egg ca\dty, 2 to 24 inches across, 
by nearl}' IJ inches deep. 
Breeding-vxonihs. July to December or January. 
This is one of the birds figured in White’s “ Journal,” but no note was given 
of its habits. Latham gave a technical description apparently from White’s 
MS,, as the ‘‘Journal” was simultaneously published. 
Vigors and Horsfield published Caley’s note : “ This bii’d is most frequently 
met with in trees growing in scrubs, where the different species of Banksia 
are found, the flowers of which I have reason to think afford it a sustenance 
duimg winter. In the summer I have shot it when sucking the flow^ers of 
Leptospermum flavescens. In the scrubs about Paramatta it is very common.” 
Gould’s observations read: “ Is one of the most abundant and familiar 
birds inhabiting the colonies of New South Wales, Tasmania, and South 
Australia ; aU the gardens of the settlers are visited by it, and among their 
shrubs and flowering plants it annually breeds. The belts of Banksias grovdng 
on sterile, sandy soils, also afford it so congenial an asylum, that I am cei-tainly 
not wrong in saying that they are never deserted by it, or that the one is a 
certain accompaniment of the other. The range enjoyed by this species 
appears to be confined to the south-eastern portions of Australia; it is 
abimdant in the sandy districts of South Australia wherever the Banksias 
abound. In Tasmania it is much more numerous on the northern than on 
VOL. xn. 
17 
