32 records of the australian museum. 



Note on the 



NIDIFICATION of MANUGODIA CO MRU, Sdater. 



Comrie's Manucode. 



By a. J. North, F.L.S., Assistant in Ornithology. 



[Plate VII.] 



Manucodia comrii, Sclat., Proc. Zool. Soc, 1876, p. 459. 



The Trustees of the Australian Museum have lately received 

 from the Rev, R. H. Rickard the egg of Manucodia comrii, 

 taken by him on Fergusson Island, off the South-East coast of 

 New Guinea, in July, 1891. The Rev. Mr. Rickard informs me 

 that from the 20th of June to the 20th of July he had been 

 at various times engaged in company with his black boy shooting 

 Manucodes on this island, but rarely saw a female. Early in 

 July he found a nest of this species in the lower branches of a 

 bread-fruit tree at a height of twenty -five feet from the ground. 

 The female was on the nest, which was an open loosely made 

 structure of vinelets and twigs placed at the extremity of the 

 branch ; having procured her, he found that she was in very 

 indifferent plumage as though she had been sitting for a long 

 time, and the eggs, two in number, were chipped, and just upon 

 the point of hatching. The egg is an elongate ovoid in form, 

 and is of a warm isabelline ground colour with purplish dots, 

 blotches and bold longitudinal streaks, uniformally dispersed over 

 the surface of the shell, intermingled with similar superimposed 

 markings of purplish-grey. Length 1'65 x 1*13 inch. 



The range ' of this species is confined to the islands of the 

 D'Entrecasteaux Group. 



