148 GESNERACE.E OF AUSTRALIA., 



the Wedge-tailed Eagle. It lays two eggs, which in colour and 

 shape resemble those of the above mentioned bird, but are much 

 smaller. Length 2-16 by 1*85, being strongly blotched with 

 bright rust-red, with spots and dots of the same colour. 



It usually lays about the middle of August, and the young 

 leave the nest about the beginning of December. If undisturbed 

 the old birds resort year after year to the same nest, but should 

 it be robbed, they adandon it for ever, and it is never occupied 

 by birds of the same species again, although other species of 

 hawks, notably the brown hawk — (Hieracidea orientalisj sometimes 

 takes possession. I have never known the Buzzard to touch 

 carrion, or to feed upon anything that it did not capture, and 

 except at the nest I have never seen them perch on a tree, but I 

 have often seen them alight on the ground. The note which is 

 something between a whistle and a scream is only uttered when 

 visiting the nest. 



Gesnerace.e of Australia. 



By the Eev. Dr. Woolls, D.D., F.L.S., &c. 



The order of Gesnerworts is for the most part tropical or semi- 

 tropical, and the species are generally valued for the beauty of 

 their flowers. The two suborders, into which the order is 

 divided (viz. Gesnerece and CyrtandreceJ, have a very different 

 geographical distribution, for whilst the former is limited to the 

 warmer parts of America, the latter extends to different regions 

 of the world, especially in the East. It was not until 1823, when 

 the eminent Explorer and Botanist Allan Cunningham visited 

 Mount Tomah, that any species of the order were known to exist in 

 Australia. The notice of Fieldia australis, which was subsequently 

 referred to the Gesneracece, is thus recorded in a paper of 

 Cunningham's in Hooker's Journal of Botany, Vol. IV., p. 286 : 

 " A climbing, rooting-stemmed plant adhering to the trunks of 

 the tree-ferns is very general in these shaded woods, where it 



