Note on a nest of Petroeca leggii, Sharpe. The Scarlet-breasted Robin
Abstract
Mr. Joseph Gabriel, F.L.S., one of the most enthusiastic members of the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, has recently forwarded me a beautiful nest of the Scarlet-breasted Robin, built in a very well concealed situation. The nest was found by Mr. Gabriel at Bayswater, Victoria, on the 15th Novr., 1894, and is formed in a small cavity burnt out of the thin stem or a "Mountain Musk," Olearia argophylla, at an elevation of about six feet from the ground. The dimensions of this hollow in the stem of the tree, from its base to where it narrows at the top, were six inches and a half in height by three inches and a half in width on one side, and four inches and a half by three inches and a half on the other; and in this snug recess the nest is ensconced. It is composed of very fine strips of the inner bark of a Eucalypt, intermingled with the soft downy covering of the freshly budded fronds of a tree fern, and thickly and warmly lined inside with opossum fur; the rim and one side of the nest are ornamented with cobwebs collected from a burnt tree and to which still adhere small fragments of charred wood, making the nest assimilate closely to its surroundings.
