240 
SITTING. 
Hah. Port Denison, Wide Bay District, Dawson River, 
Richmond and Clarence Rivers Districts, New South Wales, 
Interior, Victoria South Australia. (Ramsay.) 
Sub-Family SITTING. 
Genus SITTELLA, Swainson. 
STTTELLA CHRYSOPTERA, Latham. 
Orange-winged Sittella. 
Gould, HandbJc. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 373, p. 609. 
The Orange-winged Sittella is universally dispersed over the 
eastern and south-eastern portions of the continent of Australia. 
It breeds freely in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and there are 
several of its singular and beautifully formed nests in the 
Australian Museum Collection. A nest now before me is placed 
at the junction of an upright forked branch of a Eucalyptus ; it 
is of an inverted cone shape, with a cup-like cavity at the top, 
the rim of the nest being sharp and thin, it is constructed of the 
downy tufts of Banksia cones interwoven together with cobwebs, 
but they are entirely hidden by the whole exterior surface being 
covered with short pieces of bark perpendicularly and neatly 
fastened on with cobwebs, which gives it a “ shingled ” appearance 
and renders it most difficult of detection : the inside is beautifully 
lined with soft mosses and mouse-eared lichens. It measures 
exteriorly, four inches and a-half in length, by two inches and a- 
quarter in diameter; cavity, one inch and seven-eighths in 
diameter, by one inch and a-quarter in depth. The nest of this 
bird is usually built on the side of a dry upright forked branch of 
a Eucalyptus, Casuarina, or Acacia, varying according to the kind 
of tree in which it is placed, from fifteen to fifty or sixty feet from 
the ground. Eggs three or four in number for a sitting, usually 
the former. 
