20 



CORVID.E. 



varying from ten to sixty feet from the ground. Eggs four or five in number for a sitting, 

 varying in form from oval to elongate and rounded-oval, the shell being close-grained and 

 its surface smooth and slightly glossy. They are of a pale bluish or skim-milk white ground 

 colour, sparingly dotted, spotted, blotched, or streaked with purplish-black, umber, and slaty- 

 grey, and similar underlying markings of pale purplish or bluish-grey. In some specimens 

 the spots are rounded and nearly black, in others irregularly shaped, and frequently they 

 appear as if the colour had been placed on the shell when wet, and had run to one end or side 

 of the marking. Occasionally eggs are found as figured on Plate I\'., beautifully marked with 

 longitudinal streaks like the eggs of the genus Ptilorhis, being slaty- or purplish -grey at one 

 end of the streak and running into umber or blackish-brown on the other. I have also seen 

 ft^as of this species entirely devoid of markings. Typical eggs, however, cannot be confused 

 with those of any other Australian bird. An average set of five measures as follows:— 

 Length (A) r2xo-8cS inches; (B) 1-3 x 0-87 inches; (C) 1-22 x 0-85 inches; (D) 1-23 x 0-87 

 inches; (E) r2ixo-88 inches. Another set of four measures— (A) i-ixo-86; (B) rixo-84 

 inches; (C) 1-14 x 0-84 inches; (D) i-2xo-87 inches. Nests are occasionally found containing 

 as many as eight eggs, evidently the result of two females laying in the same nest, but I have 

 never heard of several birds assisting in the building of a single nest, like Corcorax melanorhamphus. 



The nest figured, received from 

 Mr. E. H. Lane, was taken at 

 Wambangalang Station, in Octo- 

 ber, 1899, and another containing 

 four young ones, was procured 

 on the 7th November following. 

 With these nests, Mr. Lane sent 

 the following note: — " Every nest 

 of Strutliidea cinerea we climbed 

 to this year, before eggs were 

 laid, the birds deserted, some six 

 or seven altogether." 



jf^^j^^^^^ 



Young birds are duller in colour 

 than the adults, the under-surface 

 is washed with brown, and the 

 light greyish tips to the feathers 

 of the throat'and chest are absent. 



NEST AND EGGS OF THE APOSTLE-BIRD. ^^ ing 5-5 incheS. 



Two young birds in the collection, shot at Belaringar, New South Wales, on the nth 

 December, 1899, from a flock of twelve in the normal plumage, are dull creamy-white 

 above and below, slightly tinged with brown, which is more distinct on the back, rump, 

 and upper tail-coverts; tail-feathers pale brown; bill and legs pale fleshy-brown. Wing 

 5-5 inches. 



August, and the four following months, constitute the usual breeding season of this 

 species, but nests containing fresh eggs have been taken in Queensland, in the middle of 

 January. 



