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DESCRIPTIONS OF THE NESTS AND EGGS OF FOUR 

 SPECIES OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



By Alfred J. North, C.M.Z.S., Ornithologist, Australian 



Museum, Sydney. 



Ephthianura crocea, Castlenau & Ramsay. 

 Crescent- marked Ephthianura. 



This species, the most diminutive member of the genus Ephthia- 

 nura, was one of the novelties secured b)"- Mr. Gulliver in a 

 collection of birds formed on the Norman River, near the Gulf 

 of Carpentaria, North Queensland. The collection was acquired 

 by the late Comte de Castlenau and the species jointly described 

 by Dr. Ramsay and himself in a paper contributed to this 

 Society in December, 1876. Subsequently, the late Mr. T. H. 

 Boyer-Bower obtained several specimens near Derby, North-west 

 Australia, the only other district it has been recorded from, 

 although its range probably extends eastwards across the continent 

 to the Norman River. A nest of this species is a small cup- 

 shaped structure, irregularly formed on the outside of thin dried 

 stalks of herbaceous plants, and lined inside with fine wiry 

 grasses and rootlets. Eggs three in number for a sitting, oval in 

 form and pure white, with minute dots and spots of blackish-red 

 sparingly distributed over the surface of the shell; and not to be 

 distinguished except for their slightly smaller size from those of 

 its close congener E. aurifrons. Length, (A) 6 x O-iS inch; 

 (B) 0-62 X 45 inch; (C) 0-62 x 0-44 inch. 



Hah. — Gulf District of Northern Queensland, North-west 

 Australia. 



Ptilotis macleayana, Ramsay. 



Sir William Macleay's Honey-eater. 



A nest of this species taken by Mr. J. A. Boyd from a Mango 

 tree near the Herbert River on the 16th of December, 1896, is a 

 deep cup-shaped structure slung by the rim to a thin forked 



