PTILOTIS LEUCOTIS.
White-eared Honey-eater.
Turdus leucotis, Lath. Ind. Orn., p. xliv. No. 26.
White-eared Honey-eater, Lath. Gen. Hist., vol. iv. p. 186. No. 41.
White-eared Thrush, Lath. Gen. Syn. Suppl., vol. ii. p. 373.
Meliphaga leucotis, Vig. and Horsf. in Linn. Trans., vol. xv. p. 314.—Jard. and Selb. Ill. Orn., vol. i. pl. xxxv. fig. 2.—Temm. Man., part i. p. lxxxvii.—Temm. Pl. Col. 435.—Gould in Syn. Birds of Australia, Part I.
The White-eared Honey-eater enjoys a very wide range of habitat; I found it in abundance in the belts of the Murray and other parts of South Australia, and in the brushes near the coast as well as in the open forests of Eucalypti in New South Wales; it is very common in the Bargo brush on the road to Argyle, and Mr. Gilbert mentions that he shot a specimen near York in the interior of Western Australia, but it is there so rare that he believed the individual he procured was the only one that had been seen. It is as much an inhabitant of the mountainous as of the lowland parts of the country, and is always engaged in creeping and clinging about among the leafy branches of the Eucalypti, particularly those of a low or stunted growth, such as the thick forests of sapling and dwarf gum-trees growing on Kangaroo Island, one among the other localities in which it abounds.
Its note is loud, and very much resembles that of the Ptilotis penicillata. The stomach is small and membranous, and the food consists of insects of various kinds.
I did not succeed in discovering the nest.
The plumage of the upper surface harmonizes beautifully with the tint of the green leaves, among which it is always disporting.
The sexes are alike in their markings, but they differ considerably in size, the male being much less than her mate.
Upper surface and abdomen yellowish olive; crown of the head grey, streaked longitudinally with black; throat and chest black; ear-feathers pure silvery white; tips of the tail-feathers yellowish white; bill black; irides greenish grey, with a narrow ring of pale wood-brown; legs and feet leaden greenish grey.
The figures represent the two sexes of the natural size.