LICHMERA. 
195 
generally built near the top of a small, weak, thinly branched bush 
of about two or three feet in height, situated in a plantation of 
seedling mahogany or other Eucalypti; it is formed of small dried 
sticks, grass, and narrow strips of soft bark, and is lined with 
Zamia wool, but in those parts of the country where that plant is 
not found, the soft buds of flowers, or the hairy flowering pai’ts of 
grasses, form the lining materials, and in the neighbourhood of 
sheep-walks, wool collected from the scrub. The eggs are usually 
two in number. They are nine lines long by seven lines broad, 
and are usually of a dull reddish-buff, spotted very distinctly with 
chestnut and reddish-brown, interspersed with obscure dashes 
of purplish-grey.” (Gould, Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., p. 491.) 
1Tab. Wide Bay District, New South Wales, West and South- 
West Australia. {Ramsay.) 
Genus LICHMERA, Gabanis. 
LICHMERA AUSTRALASIAN A, Shaw. 
Tasmanian Honey-eater. 
Gould, Handbk. Birds Aust., Vol. i., sp. 300, p. 493. 
This bird is distributed over the whole of Tasmania and portions 
of Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia. 
In Gippsland the nest of this species is a round cup-shaped structure, 
outwardly composed of fine strips of bark, lined inside with grasses 
and the downy covering of the young fronds of the Tree 
Fern, Dicksonia antarctica; it is generally placed in a low tree or 
thick bush not far from the ground. Eggs three in number for a 
sitting, of a light saturnine buff becoming darker towards the larger 
end, where they are marked with spots of a deeper tint of the same 
colour and chestnut-brown, with a few obsolete spots of dark lilac. 
In some instances the markings are indistinct, and not well 
defined ; in others they form a well defined zone. Dimensions of 
a set taken at South Gippsland, October 1879. Length (A) 0-76 
x 0-58 inch ; (B) 0 74 x 0‘58 inch ; (C) 0-75 x 0'56 inch. 
