22 RECORDS OF THE AUSTRALIAN MUSEUM. 



Lake Buloke, in the Wimraera District of Victoaia, on 1st April, 

 1891. The nest was built at a height of about fifteen feet, on the 

 branch of a Eucalyptus standing in the water, it was outwardly 

 composed of sticks lined inside with twigs, and contained five 

 eggs, one of which was unfortunately broken in descending the 

 tree. The eggs are elongated ovals in form tapering gradually 

 towards the smaller end, where they are somewhat sharply pointed; 

 the shell has a thick, white, calcareous covering, only a few scratches 

 here and there revealing the true colour underneath, which is of 

 a pale blue. Length (A) 2-41 x 1-4.5 inches; (B) 2-32 x 1-42 

 inches; (C) 2-34 x 1*45 inch ; (D) 2-43 x 1-47 inch. Although 

 very late in the season, Mr. Ayres found another Darter's nest on 

 the same day, containing five newly hatched young ones. 



This species is found all over Australia, but is more sparingly 

 distributed in the extreme Southern and Western portions of the 

 Continent. 



NOTE ON THE OCCURRENCE of the SANDERLING 

 (CALIDRIS ARENARIA) m NEW SOUTH WALES. 



By Prof. Alfred Newton, M.A., F.R.S. 



Having lately occasion to investigate the range of the Sanderling 

 (Galidris arenaria), I came across a memorandum made in the 

 year 1860 of my having then seen in the Derby Museum at Liver- 

 pool, two specimens of the larger race of this species, one in 

 Winter dress and the other in incipient Spring plumage, both 

 being marked as females and as having been obtained at Sandy 

 Cove in New South Wales, 20th April, 1844, by the late John 

 Macgillivray. As this wandering species does not seem to have 

 been hitherto recorded from Australia, this fact may be of some 

 interest to the Ornithologists of that country. I may add that I 

 find little verification of Temminck's assertion in 1840 (Man. d' 

 Ornithologie iv. p. 349) often repeated in one form or another 

 that the Sanderling occurs in the Sunda Islands and New Guinea; 

 or even, as by a recent writer who states in general terms, that 

 it is a winter visitor to the islands of the Malay Archipelago 

 ("Geographical Distribution of the Charadriida^ <kc." p, 432). Java 

 seems to be the only one of these islands in which its presence has 

 been determined, and though it was included with a mark of doubt 

 in the lists of the Birds of Borneo by Prof. W. Blasius (1882) 

 and Dr. Vorderman (1886) respectively, it has been omitted, and 

 apparently with reason from that of Mr. Everitt (1889). It is well 

 known to pass along the whole of the West Coast of America, 

 and it has been obtained in the Galapagos and the Sandwich 

 Islands, but I know of no instance of its having been observed in 

 any polynesian group or within the tropics to the eastward of Java. 

 Magdalene College, Cambridge, 25th March, 1892. 



