BY ALFRED J. NORTH. 41 



eighteen inches from the ground, growing in a fernery attached to 

 Mr. Boyd's house, and opposite his office to which people were 

 constantly coming through the day ; a piano also, that was in 

 frequent use by the children, being within fifteen feet of the nest. 

 During the period of incubation the female sat steadily, and did 

 not attempt to fly when looked at by one only three feet away, the 

 nest being so deep that the whole of the bird's body was invisible 

 except the bill. This bird was quite tame and used to fly back- 

 wards and forwards through the dining-room where a number of 

 persons were seated at dinner. The nest was commenced on the 

 7th of December, and contained three eggs on the 15th inst.; two 

 youug ones were hatched on the 28th inst., and a third next day ; 

 the period of incubation being fourteen days. The young birds 

 left the nest on the 12th of January. 



Lamprococcyx malayanus (Little Bronze Cuckoo). 



The habitat of this species is the Malayan Peninsula, extending 

 through the islands of the Indo-Malayan Archipelago to New 

 Guinea, and ranging as far South as Cambridge Gulf on the North- 

 western portion of the Australian Continent, and to the neighbour- 

 hood of Port Denison on the North-eastern coast. 



Gould's figure oi Chrysococcyx minutillus, in his Supplement to 

 the folio edition of the Birds of Australia, is a faithful represen- 

 tation of this bird, but being copied from a dried skin lacks the 

 bright vermilion orbital ring which is so marked a characteristic 

 in this species. Captain G. E. Shelley, however, who has recently 

 prepared the Cuculidce for Vol. xix. of the British Museum 

 Catalogue of Birds, pronounces Gould's type specimen of C. 

 minutillus, under which name this Cuckoo is more familiarly 

 known in Australia, to be identical with C. malayanus of Raflles. 



For some years past Mr. Boyd has found a dark bronze-coloured 

 egg of a Cuckoo in the nests of Gerygone magnirostris, varying 

 considerably from the well-known egg of L. plagosiis, and which I 

 referred to when describing the nest and eggs of G. magnirostris in 

 "The Ibis" last year. Recently Mr. Boyd has forwarded two spirit 

 specimens of the Cuckoos frequenting the vicinity of where these 



