YELLOW-THROATED FRIAR-BIRD. 
through it from the ground. Dimensions over all ; 5 inches across by 4 to inches 
in depth. Egg cavity, 3 to 3| inches across by 2i to nearly 3 inches deep. The 
nest is built in a tree in the forest, and more often at the very extremity of a long 
limb, and sometimes hanging over water. 
The following are from Melville Island :— 
Three eggs in full set. Tree wliite gum. Height from ground 6 feet. Nest was 
suspended in a bunch of pendant leaves and was loosely fastened to the twigs with 
cobwebs and some tow. Mtaterials, coarse stems of annuals and grasses, a few fine 
twigs, and some horsehair lined with a little fine stems of grass. From below the 
eggs could be seen through the nest. November. Dimensions : Outside SJ by 6 A 
by 4 in. deep. Inside 3A by 3t\ by 2 ^ in. deep. 
Tlxree eggs in full clutch. Tree Bloodwood. Height from ground 5 feet. Nest 
was suspended from a few twigs growing from the side of a horizontal limb. Was 
built of stems of annuals and some creeper tendrils, was held together with cobwebs 
and silk-like cocoons, and fastened to the branches with the same materials and 
wag lined with fine grasses. November. Dimensions : Outside, 61 ^ by 4 ^ by 
^ in. deep. Inside 31^ by 2H by in. deep. 
Three eggs in full clutch. Tree Bauhinia. Height from ground 6 feet. Nest was 
placed between two horizontal twigs. Was built of stems of annuals, fine twigs, 
tendrils of creepers, grass stems and horsehair, and was lined with fine grass stems ; 
was fastened to the main branch and twigs with cobwebs. Dimensions: Outside, 
4ii by 3H by 3| in. deep. Inside, 3-^ by 2 ^ by 2 t^« in. deep. 
Two eggs in fiill clutch. Tree Bahunia. Height from ground 6 feet, the nest was 
sxispended between two horizontal twigs, and was constructed with fine twigs, stems 
of annuals and lined with grass, and was fastened together with unravelled cotton 
and woollen cloth and string, and was secured to the tree with the same material. 
Dimensions : Outside, by 5 by Sts in. deep. Inside, 3^ by SJ by 2 in. deep. 
Breeding^morUhs. August to end December to February. 
Gould described this species before he went to Australia and afterwards 
wiDte: This is strictly a bird of the interior of the south-eastern portion 
of Australia, and is never, so far as I am aware, found on the seaside of the 
motmtain ranges. I obseiwed it in tolerable abundance during my tom' to the 
Namoi; first meeting with it in the neighbourhood of Brezi, whence as I 
descended the river to the nor'thward it gradually became more numerous. 
I killed both adult and yomig birds in December, the latter of which had just 
left the nest, consequently the breeding-season must have been about a month 
previous. The yellow colouring of the throat peculiar to the period of 
immaturrty is entirely wanting in the adult, and the bird is one of the plainest- 
coloured species of the Australian Famia. Its habits and manners are very 
srmilar' to those of the Tropidorhynchus corniculatns; like that bird it feeds on 
insects, berries, fruits and the flowers of the Eucalypti, among the smaller 
branches of which it may constantly be seen hanging and clinging in every 
possible variety of attitude.’’ 
119 
