In a letter lately received from Mr. Gilbert he informs me, on the authority of Mr. Johnson Drummond, that this species “makes a nest of short strips of bark attached together and fastened to the branch with cobwebs, and so covered over with them as to be very nearly smooth; the cobweb is laid or felted on, not wound round the pieces; portions of lichen are frequently attached. The nest is generally placed in the highest and most slender fork of an Acacia, and is most difficult to detect, from its very diminutive size and from its resembling a slight excrescence of the wood; the eggs are three in number, of a whitish colour, with circular green spots regularly distributed over the whole surface. The bird breeds in September, and Mr. Johnson Drummond states that the margin of the nest is brought to a sharp edge like that of _Piezorhynchus nitidus_. Would you not have supposed that this bird breeds in the holes of trees like the Nuthatch of Europe?” On reference to the synonyms given above, it will be seen, that prior to my visit to Australia, I regarded, described and named the two sexes of this bird as distinct species, an error which the opportunity I subsequently had of observing the bird in a state of nature and of dissecting recent specimens has enabled me to correct; the black-headed specimens proving to be females, and those with a black cap only males. The male has the forehead, stripe over the eye, throat, breast, and centre of the abdomen white; crown of the head black; ear-coverts, back of the neck and back greyish brown, with a small stripe of dark brown down the centre of each feather of the latter; rump white; upper and under tail-coverts greyish brown, crossed with an arrow-shaped mark of dark brown, and tipped with white; tail black, the centre feathers slightly and the outer ones largely tipped with white; wings blackish brown, with a large patch of rufous in the centre, interrupted by the blackish brown margins of some of the secondaries; all the feathers slightly tipped with greyish brown; flanks and vent greyish brown; bill yellow at the base, black at the tip; feet beautiful king’s-yellow; irides buffy hazel; eyelash buff. The female differs in being somewhat darker on the upper surface, and in having the whole of the upper part of the head including the orbits deep black. The figures represent both sexes of the natural size. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling. 2. Anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings retained as printed. 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_. End of Project Gutenberg's The Birds of Australia, Vol. 4 of 7, by John Gould