39 



OOLOGICAL NOTES. 



By Alfred J. North, F.L.S,, Assistant in Ornithology, 

 Australian Museum. 



In a collection of nests and eggs made last season by our 

 fellow-membei" Mr. J. A. Boyd, of the Herbert River, North- 

 eastern Queensland, are the nests and eggs of a species of Honey- 

 eater and the eggs of a Cuckoo, a description of which may be 

 of interest to members of this Society. That a portion of the 

 avifauna of the rich coastal brushes of tropical North-eastern 

 Queensland is derived from the adjoining Papuan fauna on one 

 hanl, and that of the Indo-Malayan fauna on the other, is well 

 exemplified by the two species that are exhibited here this evening ; 

 Ptilotis analoga representing the Papuan, and Lamprococcyx 

 malayanus that of the Indo-Malayan areas. 



Ptilotis analoga. 



This Honey-eater's being subject to local variation, more 

 especially in size and the length of the bill, will account for the 

 different names under which each phase has been described. It 

 was first figured by MM. Hombron et Jacquinot in the "Voyage 

 au Pole Sud," as Ptilotis analogue, and was described subsequently 

 in the text of the same work by MM. Jacquinot et Pucheran as 

 Ptilotis similis, from specimens obtained on the western coast of 

 New Guinea. Before the text of the " Voy. au Pole Sud " was 

 printed, however, Reichenbach, whose name obtains as the 

 authority for this species, had described and figured it in his 

 Handbook of Meropince under the name of P. analoga, originally 

 bestowed on it by Hombron and Jacquinot. Since then varying 

 phases of this species have been characterised from different parts 

 of the same island under the names of Ptilotis auriculata and 



