WHITE-CHEEKED HONEY-EATER. 
iMr. Tom CaHer has written mo: “ The Moustached Honey-eater is given 
in your ‘ Reference List ’ 1912, as ranging thiough West Australia. I believe 
that like M. n. longirostris it is a south-western form only. My experience 
is that it is nowhere abundant, very local in its distribution and always 
excessively wild and wary. For many years I have known of two very 
limited patches of country near Albany where a few pairs could almost always 
be seen. Both wei-e near the coast, and one of them an almost precipitous 
rocky limestone blutf overhanging the sea. A few clumps of very dense stiff 
bush afforded the birds cover there. They have a peculiar harsh note, totally 
unlike that of aiw other Honey-eater, and when once known it cannot be 
mistaken. On July 6th, 1908, I shot a female on a scrubby sand-plain a few 
miles east of Broome Hill. It had building (nesting) material in its beak. 
Tins was the only specimen ever seen in that locality (probably it was M. 
n. inexpectatiis). A few bii-ds were also seen not far fronv Perth, West Australia.” 
Hill wrote from Brookton, West Australia: “ A shy bird. Found only 
in the densest scrubs on the gi-avel ridges, where it is very abundant, and its 
cry is continually to be heard. Now and then one can be seen as it mounts 
to the top of a bush for a moment, but it instantly vanishes on perceiving 
the intruder, no mattei* how still he remains. The skin of a Moustached Honey- 
eater wJiich I shot was loose, and could be taken up in the fingers like that of 
a pug-dog.” 
Whitlock’s notes from the Stirling Ranges read: “ Was by no means 
uncommon around Donelly Peak. It was one of the first birds to attract my 
attention on arrival in the ranges. A favourite haunt was a very steep 
hillside tliickly clothed with dwarf Banksia and other shrubs. Here I found 
nests with young, and also young on the ^ving, early in September. This 
hiU was in a sheltered situation and faced the north. On the sand-plain below 
1 obtained several nests with eggs a little later. All the nests were low down. 
They were rather loosely constructed of dried grass stems and lin ed with 
vegetable down. The eggs varied even in the same nest. I did not find the 
Moustached Honey-eater a close sitter.” 
So little has been written about the habits of this species that it is 
disappointing to read Campbell and Barnard’s account from Rockingham 
Bay as follows: “ This showy species, with golden splashed wings, was one 
of the surprises of the tableland. It was fairly common amongst the red- 
flowering bottle-brush trees {CaUistenian) that embowered Kirrama Creek. 
A nest was obseiwed building do'vvn in the centi’e of a tuft of reeds surrounded 
by water, but the bird had not laid when we left the district. The Herberton 
variety differs from the southern White-cheeked Honey-eater by its smaller 
size and brighter colouring. It is strange Broadbent neglected to record the 
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