we 
Ca THE GEELONG NATURALIST. 
domed form like that of the Wren (European), with a small 
hole for an entrance; it was outwardly composed of grasses 
and warmly lined with feathers.” 
Although the Yellow-tipped Diamond-Bird usually resorts 
to timber for breeding, it appears to be addicted to terrestrial 
quarters sometimes, for, according to my friend and corres- 
pondent, Mr. Arthur E. Brent, the nests are found “both in 
trees and in the banks of sand on the shores of the Derwent, 
where the birds abound in hundreds in the breeding season." 
PARDALOTUS QUADRAGINTUS (Gould). 
FORTY-SPOTTED DIAMOND BIRD. 
Ficure.— Gould; Bds. of Aust., fol., Vol. II, pl. 37. 
REFERENCE.—Cat. Bds., Brit. Mus., Vol. X, p. 62. 
Previous Derscrirrions or Eacs.—Gould; Bds. of 
Aust., (1848); also, Hdbk., Vol. I, p. 160, (1865.) North: 
Cat., Nests and Eggs, Aust. Mus, p. 54, (1889). . 
GEOGRAPHICAL DistTRIBUTION.—Tasmania and King Is. 
Nzsr.— Constructed of soft grasses, bark, &c., and built 
into a hole or hollow of a lofty green tree. 
Eccs.—Clutch, 4, roundish or oval in shape; texture of 
shell, fine; pure white with a trace of gloss on the surface. 
Dimensions in inches—(1) 0.66 x 0.52; (2) 0.66 x o.51. Set 
in Mr. E. D. Atkinson’s collection. (1) 0.64 x 0.51; (2) 0.62 
X 0.53; (3) 0-58 x 0.53. 
OsnSERVATIONS.— This esthetic-coloured, and tke. least of 
Diamond Birds, is peculiar to Tasmania and some of the 
islands in Bass Straits, notably King Island, where we 
obtained specimens during the Field Naturalists’ expedition, 
Nov., 1887. rut 
) 
Gould found the Forty-spotted Diamond Bird numerous 
in the gullies about Mt. Wellington, and observed it breeding 
in a hole in one of the loftiest trees, at about forty feet from 
the ground. He also took a properly developed egg from the 
body of a female that was shot on the 5th October. 
J: 
Breeding months are from September to January. The 
eggs in my Cabinet of the Forty-spotted Diamond Bird were 
taken by Mr. G. K. Hinsby, Tasmania, on Denistoun run, near 
Bothwell, Christmas, 1876, ; 
F 
