As nothing whatever is at present known respecting it, it is one of those species I would especially recommend to the notice of those favourably situated for observing it.
Forehead crossed by a narrow band of dirty white; crown and back of the head deep black, each feather having a spot of white near its extremity; back of the neck, back, wing-coverts and rump brownish grey; wings dark brown, margined with pale brown, the spurious wing, a small portion of the base of the primaries, and the outer margins of the secondaries fine golden orange; immediately before the eye a spot of bright, fiery orange; above and behind the eye a stripe of buff; upper tail-coverts bright olive-green; tail deep blackish brown, the extreme tips of the feathers being white; throat and abdomen greyish white; chest bright yellow; upper mandible and legs brown, under mandible greyish white.
The bird is represented in two positions, of the natural size, on a plant gathered in New South Wales.
PARDALOTUS QUADRAGINTUS: Gould.
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith. C. Hullmandel Imp.
PARDALOTUS QUADRAGINTUS, Gould.
Forty-spotted Pardalote.
Pardalotus quadragintus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part V. p. 148; and in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part IV.
Forty-spot, Colonists of Van Diemen’s Land.
This species is peculiar to Van Diemen’s Land, where it inhabits the almost impenetrable forests which cover that island, particularly those of its southern portion. It is I think less numerous than its congener, the Pardalotus affinis, and appears to confine itself more exclusively to the highest gum-trees than that species. I found it very abundant in the gulleys under Mount Wellington, and observed it breeding in a hole in one of the loftiest trees, at about forty feet from the ground; I afterwards took a perfectly developed white egg from the body of a female killed on the 5th of October. The weight of this little bird was rather more than a quarter of an ounce; the stomach was muscular, and contained the remains of the larvæ of lepidoptera, which with coleoptera and other insects constitute its food.
It has a simple piping kind of note of two syllables.