It commences breeding in November, when it becomes animated and fierce, losing all fear of man, and readily attacking hawks, crows, magpies (_Gymnorhina_) or other large birds that may venture within the precincts of its nest, never desisting from the attack until they are driven to a considerable distance. The nest, which is rather rudely constructed, and of a large size for a Honey-eater, is cup-shaped, and outwardly composed of the inner rind of the stringy bark and wool, to which succeeds a layer of fine twigs lined with grasses and fibrous roots, the whole being suspended to the horizontal branch of an apple- (_Angophora_) or gum-tree without the least regard to secresy, frequently within a few feet of the ground. So numerous were they breeding in the Apple-tree Flats near Aberdeen and Yarrundi, that they might almost be termed gregarious. The eggs are generally three in number, of a pale salmon colour with minute spots of a darker tint, one inch and five lines long by eleven lines broad. There is no observable difference in the plumage of the sexes, but the female is somewhat smaller in size. The adults have the bill and head dull ink-black; all the upper surface, wings and tail greyish brown, the feathers of the latter tipped with white; chin and lanceolate feathers on the chest silvery white, with a fine line of brown down the centre; remainder of the under surface brownish grey; eye red, fading immediately after death to brown and sometimes to greyish hazel; feet lead-colour. The young, although having the same general colouring as the adult, have the head less denuded of feathers, and a mere rudiment of the knob on the bill; the feathers on the breast are also less lanceolate in form, and those on the sides of the chest are margined with yellow; eye dark brown, surrounded with short brown feathers lengthening into a tuft at the back of the head; feet much more blue than in adults. The Plate represents an old bird and a young one of the first autumn, on the wild fig of the Upper Hunter; the birds and plant being of the natural size. [Illustration: TROPIDORHYNCHUS ARGENTICEPS: _Gould_. _J. & E. Gould del et lith._ _C. Hullmandel Imp._ ] TROPIDORHYNCHUS ARGENTICEPS, _Gould_. Silvery-crowned Friar-bird. _Tropidorhynchus argenticeps_, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part VII. 1839, p. 144. For the first knowledge of this new species of _Tropidorhynchus_, science is indebted to Benjamin Bynoe, Esq., Surgeon of Her Majesty’s Surveying ship the Beagle, who, on my visiting Sydney, placed his specimens at my disposal; since my return, other examples have been sent for my use, in this work, by His Excellency Captain Grey, now Governor of South Australia.