The Plate represents a male and a female on a branch of the beautiful _Prostanthera lasianthos_, of the natural size. [Illustration: PTILOTIS ORNATUS: _Gould_. _J. & E. Gould del et lith._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] PTILOTIS ORNATUS, _Gould_. Graceful Ptilotis. _Ptilotis ornatus_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part VI., 1838, p. 24.—Ibid., Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IV. The first notice of this species of Honey-eater may be found in the “Proceedings of the Zoological Society for 1838,” as quoted above. The specimen there characterized was the only one I had then seen, and formed part of the fine collection of Fort Pitt at Chatham. It was received from Western Australia, where the species appears to be plentiful, being common at Swan River, and in all probability over the whole of the present unknown country between that place and the River Murray in South Australia, as I found it inhabiting the extensive belts of dwarf _Eucalypti_ and other singular shrub-like trees which border the lower part of that river, and this may possibly be the extreme limit of its range in that direction. It was a source of much gratification to myself to have unexpectedly found this elegant little bird in the rich arboretum, which had already supplied me with so many novelties, both animal and vegetable: among the latter I found the plant figured in the accompanying Plate (_Pittosporum salicifolium_, R. Brown), not as one to which the bird gives preference, but upon which it was occasionally seen; the _Eucalypti_ being the trees to which the birds of this genus more especially resort, among whose thick leafy branches and blossoms they may at all times be observed actively engaged in searching for insects, upon which, and the pollen and saccharine juices of the flowers, they almost solely subsist. In the Belts of the Murray it was confined to trees of a dwarf growth, while in the country in the neighbourhood of Swan River I am informed it is seen on the topmost branches of the gum- and mahogany-trees, clinging and flitting about the blossoms, not unfrequently descending to the ground, and hopping about beneath the branches and near the boles of the larger trees, doubtless in search of insects. It has rather a loud ringing and not unpleasing song, which is constantly poured forth. The nest is generally suspended from a horizontal forked branch, frequently in an exposed situation, and is of a neat, small, open, cup-shaped form, composed of fine vegetable fibres and grasses matted together with spiders’ webs, and sometimes wool. The eggs are either two or three in number, of a deep salmon colour, becoming paler at the smaller end and minutely freckled with reddish brown, particularly at the larger end; they are nine lines long by seven broad.