396 OOLOGICAL NOTES. 



" While on a trip to Hinchinbrook Island, I was camped in the 

 beginning of October, 1892, on a ridge, which, intersecting the 

 forest of mangrove, ran down to a salt-water creek about two 

 miles from the sea. On sevei*al consecutive days I had noticed a 

 Kingfisher {H. sordidus) settle on the limb of a tree that had 

 fallen into the stream, and stay there some little time picking and 

 pluming herself. As she always came from and returned in the 

 same direction, I concluded that she was breeding, and on the 

 6th inst, I traced her to a Termite nest in a Blood-wood tree 

 [Eucalyptus corymbosa] about thirty feet from the ground and 

 leaning somewhat over the water. The tree was two feet and 

 a- half at the base, and the ant nest not a large one, projecting 

 only about twenty inches from the limb on which it was placed. 

 I sent up a Mackfellow, ami he brought down three eggs, two of 

 which were slightly incubated, and reported there was no made 

 nest, the eggs being simply laid on the bare substance of the ant- 

 heap at the end of the burrow. I did not notice the male bird 

 near the nest, but heard him calling from a mangrove island 

 about two hundred yards away. I saw another pair nearer the 

 coast, but though I searched on several occasions, failed to 

 discover their breeding-place." 



The above set of eggs of H. sordidus, which are exhibited here 

 to-night, are pure white and nearly round in form, one specimen 

 (A) being slightly compressed towards one end, the surface of the 

 shell being very smooth and nearly lustreless, and partaking less 

 of that glossy pearly-whiteness, characteristic of the known eggs 

 of all the other members of the Australian Alcedinidfe. Length, 

 (A) 1-23 X 1-03 inch; (B) 1-2 x 1-03 inch; (C) 1-22 x 1-05 inch.* 



* After the above had been sent to press, Mr. Boyd, who was in Sydney, 

 informed me that on the 26th of December he visited the nest of H. sordidus 

 again in company with a black boy, who, on climbing the tree, reported 

 that " two fellow egg sit down." These eggs were quite fresh, and were 

 evidently laid by the same bird that had been robbed in October, although 

 the burrow in the Termite nest had been roughlj' broken into with a toma- 

 hawk. On this occasion one bird was flushed from the nest, the ©ther was 

 on a tree close at hand. The eggs are similar to those previously taken, 

 and measure as follows :— (A) ] -24 x r03 inch ; (B) 1-27 x 103 inch. 



