327 



NOTES AND EXHIBITS. 



Mr. R. Helms, in view of liis inability to be i)resent at the next 

 Meeting of the Society at which his paper will be formally read, 

 gave an outline of a very important commnnication on the evidence 

 of extensive glacier action at the Mt. Kosciusko Plateau, recently 

 observed by him. 



Mr. North drew attention to the unusually large number of 

 cuckoos at present in the neighbourhood of Sydney, and exhibited 

 a set of eggs, consisting of two eggs of Acanthiza pusilla and an 

 egg each of three different species of cuckoos, viz., Lainprococcyx 

 plagosus, L. basalis, and Cacomantis Jiabelliformis, taken on the 

 31st ult. from a nest of A. jnisilla built in a low shrub on the 

 Woolli Creek. Another nest of A. picsilla, examined on the 13th 

 inst. and built in the near vicinity to where the previous one was 

 taken, contained a single egg of C. Jiabelliformis, but on visiting 

 it the following day the egg was missing and an egg of L. basalis 

 found in its place. Several nests of Maluri and Acanthizce found 

 during August and the present month contained in some instances, 

 in addition to the egg'^ of the rightful owners, an egg each of L. 

 plagosus and L. basalis ; in others, two eggs of the one species of 

 bronze cuckoo. It is worthy of note that in many nests the eggs 

 of the cuckoos were deposited before those of the would-be foster- 

 parents, and that the entrances to the dome-shaped nests were 

 greatly enlarged, more especially in the nests where the eggs of 

 C. Jiabelliformis were found. The interior of the nests of the 

 Malari and AcaiitJuzcfi is only half the size or bulk of the latter 

 parasitical intruder. 



Mr. A. Sidney Olliff exhibited specimens of the sugar-cane 

 weevil (Sphenophorus obscurus. Boisd.), recently bred from cocoons 

 received from Northern Queensland. The species was stated to 

 be exceedingly destructive to sugar-cane and bananas in the 



