Upper surface olive-green; under surface the same colour but paler; behind the ears an oval spot of fine yellow; region of the eyes blackish; below the eye a narrow stripe of yellow; bill black at the tip, yellow at the base; legs purplish flesh-colour; irides dark lead-colour; gape white.
The Plate represents a male and a female of the natural size.
PTILOTIS SONORUS: Gould.
J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith. Hullmandel & Walton Imp.
PTILOTIS SONORUS, Gould.
Singing Honey-eater.
Ptilotis sonorus, Gould in Proc. of Zool. Soc., Part VIII. p. 160.
Dȍo-rum-dȍo-rum, Aborigines of the lowland, and
Gool-b̏o-ort, Aborigines of the mountain districts of Western Australia.
Larger Honey-sucker, Colonists of Swan River.
I have abundant evidence that the range of this species extends across the entire continent of Australia from east to west; I found it very numerous on the Namoi and other portions of the interior of New South Wales, and equally plentiful in a part of the country of a similar character to the northward of Adelaide, and it is also one of the commonest birds of the colony of Swan River. It does not, I believe, extend very far north, at least no examples have as yet been sent from the northern parts of the country. Moderately-sized trees, particularly Casuarinæ and Banksiæ, thinly scattered over grassy plains and the crowns and sides of low hills, are its usual coverts, and I have never found it in the brushes which form so peculiar a feature in New South Wales, and which are the ordinary abode of several other species of the genus. In Western Australia it enters the gardens and commits considerable havoc among the fruit-trees, particularly figs, the seeds of which appear to be its most favourite food. It also feeds upon insects, which are principally sought for among the branches; but it frequently descends and seeks for them and small seeds on the ground, when it hops around the boles and beneath the branches of the trees in a most lively manner.