The New International Encyclopædia/Diamond-bird

​DIAMOND-BIRD (so called from the peculiar marks on the plumage). A small insectivorous bird of the Australian genus Pardolotus, of uncertain affinities, but allied to the honeysuckers (q.v.), and by some placed in the Dicæida. (See Dicæum.) The commonest species is the well-known Pardolotus affinis. “It would be in vain,” says Wheelwright, in Bush Wanderings (London, 1865), “to attempt to do justice to the varied and beautiful plumage of this handsome little bird. The general color is ashy-gray and white, but spotted and spangled all over with red, yellow, orange, and black, and the tail-coverts dark red.” It is migratory, frequents in summer the open gum forests of southern Australia, especially about the honeysuckles and other tree-flowers; has a loud, sweet call-note; and breeds in holes in old logs and sometimes in the ground.

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