ANTHOCHÆRA INAURIS. Wattled Honey-eater. _Anthochæra carunculata_, Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 321.—Gould, Syn. Birds of Australia, Part I. _Creadion carunculatus_, Vieill. Gal. des Ois., tom. i. pl. 94. _Wattle Bird_ of the Colonists of Van Diemen’s Land. By nearly every author who has had occasion to mention or refer to this species, it has been confounded with the bird originally described by Latham under the name of _Merops carunculatus_, which bird is strictly confined to New South Wales and South Australia, while that here figured is I believe exclusively an inhabitant of Van Diemen’s Land; hence it becomes necessary to give the latter a new specific appellation, and I have selected that of _inauris_ as indicative of the peculiar feature by which it is distinguished, namely the great length of the pendulous ear-drops. The vast primæval forests of _Eucalypti_ clothing the greater portion of Van Diemen’s Land, whose recesses in many parts have never yet been trodden, afford it an asylum not only where food is abundant, but where it is safe from the attack of man; from these retreats however it frequently emerges, and visits the flowering _Eucalypti_ of the more open forest in the Upper Derwent districts, where forty or fifty individuals may be frequently seen on a single tree. Even in the vicinity of Hobart Town and the islands of South Arm and Bruni it may be observed, but in far less numbers, at all seasons of the year. The neighbourhood of the Macquarrie Plains is a locality particularly favourable to this bird, where hundreds are annually shot and sent to the markets of Hobart Town for the purposes of the table. It exhibits but little shyness of disposition, and almost any number may be obtained without much trouble. It is highly prized as an article of food, and in winter becomes so excessively fat as to exceed in this respect any bird I ever saw, the entire body and neck, both internally and externally, being completely enveloped. I have been informed that a large tea-cupful of oil may be procured from two of these birds, and that as it gives a better light, it is sometimes used in lieu of candles; after the breeding-season it becomes thin and spare, the male then weighing on an average only six ounces. This bird feeds almost exclusively on honey and the pollen of the _Eucalypti_; the only other food detected in its very diminutive stomach being the remains of coleopterous insects. Its whole structure is admirably adapted for procuring this kind of food; its long tongue, with its brush-like tip, being protruded at will into the honey-cups of the newly opened flowers, a succession of which appears with every rising sun throughout the year, upon one or other of the numerous species of _Eucalypti_.