1138 NOTE ON THE EGG OF THE REGENT-BIRD. 



NOTE ON THE EGG OF THE REGENT-BIRD, 



SERICULUS MELINUS, Lath. 



By Dr. E. Pierson Ramsay, F.R.S.E. 



(Plate XIX., fig. 4.) 



Recently, having had several communications from numbers of 

 this and other Scientific Societies in Australia and Great Britain 

 asking for information and a description of an authentic egg of 

 this bird, I venture to offer to the Society a carefully made descrip- 

 tion and coloured figure of an egg taken from the oviduct of the 

 bird itself, from which it will be seen that most of — I may say 

 nearly all, the so-called Regent-Birds' Eggs in the hands of collectors 

 both in this and the neighbouring colonies are not authentic. 



Sericulus melinus, Lath. 



Egg. — The ground-colour is of a delicate white with a faint 

 shade of French grey ; towards the thicker end is a zone of 

 irregularly shaped spots, some being confluent ; these are of a light 

 lilac or bluish-grey and appear beneath the surface of the shell, 

 over which, and on the remaining surface of the egg, are irregular 

 angular lines and linear markings and letters of sienna and brown, 

 forming loops, crosses, and arabic-like marks and figures, some 

 resembling the figures 4, 6, 7, 8, 3, &c, &c, and in one place at 

 the thinner end an irregularly formed capital M. Very few of 

 the lines quite encircle the egg, but many cross and recross each 

 other over the surface towards the thicker end ; the thin end has a 

 few similar shorter detached marks. Length 1*35 inches by 

 0-9 inch. 



