ACANTHIZA. 
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pieces of white spiders’ nests. It is warmly lined with feathers, 
opossum-fur or the silky down from the seed-pods of the native 
cotton-tree. The nest is suspended to a thin twig at the end of 
some leafy bough by the top, and the small opening about two 
inches down the side is neatly covered with a hood, which excludes 
both the sun and the rain. Some of the nests are without any 
ornament; others are decorated with pieces of white paper-bark, 
or with green and white spiders’ nests. Long streamers of 
bleached seaweed are also often used; and when the nests arc 
placed in the gullies of the ranges, a beautiful bright green string¬ 
like Hypnum is employed. 
We fittfl this species of Acanthiza usually the first to commence 
breeding. I have taken its eggs in July, but for the most part 
find them from August to September. They are three in number 
rather long and of a beautiful pinky-white zoned at the larger 
end with minute freckles and irregular markings of a light 
brownish-red, having also a few minute linear dashes of the same 
colour over the rest of the surface. The zone at the tip of the 
larger end is extremely characteristic ; a few specimens are found 
without it, but some which I.believe to be the eggs of young birds 
breeding for the first time, are of a pure white without any 
markings whatever. The average length is 07 inch by 05 inch 
in breadth. This species has two and sometimes three broods 
in the year, stragglers breeding as late as December and January, 
and is perhaps more frequently the foster parent of Chalcites 
plagosus and C. basalis , than any other species.” (Ramsay, P.Z.S., 
1866, p. 571, PI. of nest, p. 572.) 
Eggs of this species in the Australian Museum Collection 
measure as follows :—length (A) 0-62 x 0-47 inch; (B) 0-67 x 047 
inch; (C) 065 x 046 inch. 
Uab. Wide Bay District, Richmond and Clarence Rivers 
Districts, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia. 
f Ramsay.) 
