. Nests and eggs of birds found breeding in Australia and Tasmania . which have been built near dwellings have been lined with fowls feathers. Someare more neatly made than others, and are thickly coated with spiders webs and egg-bags,others have a reddish-hue from their being formed chiefly of stringy-bark, while occasionallythey are ornamented with soft pieces of white paper-like bark of a Melaleuca. Green moss,although it is sometimes used, does not enter so largely into the construction of the nests ofthis species as it does in those of Acanthisa nana. One now before me has several pieces
. Nests and eggs of birds found breeding in Australia and Tasmania . which have been built near dwellings have been lined with fowls feathers. Someare more neatly made than others, and are thickly coated with spiders webs and egg-bags,others have a reddish-hue from their being formed chiefly of stringy-bark, while occasionallythey are ornamented with soft pieces of white paper-like bark of a Melaleuca. Green moss,although it is sometimes used, does not enter so largely into the construction of the nests ofthis species as it does in those of Acanthisa nana. One now before me has several pieces ofstring and a small strip of white linen worked into the outer wall. An average nest measuresfour inches in length by three inches in diameter at its widest part, and one inch across theentrance. They are usually firmly attached at the top to a thin horizontal or slanting leafybranch, and for preference that of a gum sapling, at a height usually from ten to twenty feetfrom the ground; occasionally they are placed within hands reach, but never on the ground. Ai 15. STRIlED-CROWNED THORN-BILL. 278 As with the nests of other species of this genus, the rounded spout-like or hooded entranceto the structure is larger when it contains young than when the eggs are first deposited. The eggs are usually three in number for a sitting, elongate-o\al in form, the shellbeing close-grained, smooth, and lustreless. They vary in ground colour from a pinkish-whiteto a pale creamv-buff, and are more or less distinctly zoned on the larger end with minutefreckles or small irregular-shaped dots and streaks, varying from pinkish-red to dull chestnutand brownish-red, and sparingly marked with the same colour over the remainder of the the eggs of this species may be distinguished from those of any other of the genus bytheir elongated form and the markings being congregated principally in the form of a distinctzone on the larger end. Some eggs are remarkably long, and compre
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