_J. Gould and H. C. Richter del et lith._ _Hullmandel & Walton Imp._
]
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.