The nest is cup-shaped and about the size of that of the European Thrush, very neatly built of fine twigs and coarse grass, and lined either with wool and hair, or fine soft hair-like strips of bark, frequently mixed with feathers: it is usually placed among the small upright branches of a moderately-sized tree. The eggs, which are thirteen lines long by nine and a half lines broad, are of a bluish white, marked all over with reddish brown, without any indication of the zone at the larger end so frequently observable in the eggs of other species.
The sexes offer no other external difference than that the female is a trifle smaller than her mate.
Face grey; crown of the head dull black; ear-coverts and a crescent-shaped mark inclining upwards to the angle of the bill glossy black; all the upper surface light greyish brown; the feathers at the back of the neck tipped with silvery grey; primaries dark brown margined externally with grey; secondaries dark brown on their inner webs, the outer webs grey at the tip, and wax-yellow at the base; tail greyish brown, with dark brown shafts, and all but the two centre feathers largely tipped with brownish white; chin grey, a patch of dark brown down the centre; under surface grey; the feathers of the breast with a narrow crescent-shaped mark of brown near the tip of each; irides dark hazel; naked space beneath the eye, bill and feet yellow.
The Plate represents the two sexes of the natural size, drawn from specimens killed in Van Diemen’s Land.
MYZANTHA OBSCURA: Gould.
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith. C. Hullmandel Imp.
MYZANTHA OBSCURA, Gould.
Sombre Honey-eater.
Myzantha obscura, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part VIII. p. 159.
Bil-y̏a-goo-rong, Aborigines of the lowland, and
Bil-yoȕr-ga, Aborigines of the mountain districts of Western Australia.