Top of the head and cheeks black, with minute white feathers on the forehead round the base of the upper mandible; a superciliary stripe, a moustache at the base of the lower mandible, and a small tuft of feathers immediately behind the ear-coverts white; feathers on the throat white and bristle-like; upper surface brownish black, becoming browner on the rump; wings brownish black, the outer edges of the quills margined at the base with beautiful wax-yellow, and faintly margined with white towards the extremities; tail brownish black, margined externally at the base with wax-yellow, and all but the two centre feathers with a large oval spot of white on the inner web at the tip; surface white, broadly striped with black, the black predominating on the breast and the white on the abdomen; irides white; bill and feet black. The figures are of the natural size. [Illustration: MELIPHAGA SERICEA: _Gould_. _J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] MELIPHAGA SERICEA, _Gould_. White-cheeked Honey-eater. _New Holland Creeper_, female, White’s Voy., pl. in p. 297. _L’Heorotaire noir_, Vieill. Ois. dor., tom. ii. p. 106. pl. 71. _Meliphaga sericea_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part IV. p. 144; and in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part I. _Meliphaga sericeola_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 152, female. The White-cheeked Honey-eater is an inhabitant of New South Wales, and certainly proceeds as far to the eastward as Moreton Bay; but the birds inhabiting the country to the northward of this are so entirely unknown, that it is impossible to say how far its range may extend in that direction. It has not yet been discovered in Van Diemen’s Land or South Australia. It differs materially in its habits and disposition from the _Meliphaga Novæ-Hollandiæ_, being less exclusively confined to the brushes, and affecting localities of a more open character. I observed it to be tolerably abundant in the Illawarra district, particularly among the shrubs surrounding the open glades of the luxuriant brushes; it is also common at Botany Bay, and on most parts of the sea-coast between that place and the river Clarence; but I never met with it during any of my excursions into the interior of the country. I found it, unlike its near ally, a remarkably shy species; so much so, that I frequently had much difficulty in getting within gun-shot of it. When perched on the trees it is a most showy bird, its white cheek-feathers and contrasted tints of colouring rendering it very conspicuous. I did not succeed in finding its nest, a circumstance I much regret; for although it is probable that in the colour of its eggs and its mode of nidification it generally resembles the _M. Novæ-Hollandiæ_, there will doubtless be found as great a specific difference in these respects as is to be observed in the markings of their plumage.