36 PTILONORHYXCHID.E. 



resident here throusihout the year. Like Craspedophora alberti, it is very restless, and extremely 

 local in habits. Its note, a deep hissing whistle, is difficult to describe, and resembles the sound 

 of 'kheu, kheu,' as closely as letters can. The breeding season commences in December, the 

 nest being built high up in one of the scrub trees, some sixty or seventy feet from the ground. 

 It is a shallow but compact structure, very roughlv formed of plant stems and curly vine 

 tendrils, and closely resembles that of Chihia bracfeata, only larger, measuring from six to seven 

 inches in external diameter. Two eggs are laid for a sitting." Since the receipt of the above 

 note, Mr. Jardine has kindly forwarded a nest taken by him in a Terminalia muelleri, at a height 

 of sixty feet from the ground. It is an open cup-shaped structure, formed throughout of dried 

 plant stems and curly vine tendrils, and is lined at the bottom with slightly finer but similar 

 material. Externally it measures six inches in diameter by four inches in depth, and internally 

 four inches in diameter by two inches and a half in depth. The nest, which has a spring-like 

 consistency, resembling a woven spiral wire mattress, is built where two thin horizontal branches 

 cross one another, and is well supported on the sides by several upright leafy branchlets. 



For an o]-)portunity of describing a set of eggs of Phonygama goiildi, I am indebted to Dr. 

 Cliarles Ryan, of Melbourne. They were taken at Somerset, and are oval in form, slightly 

 compressed towards the smaller end, the shell being close-grained and its surface smooth and 

 almost lustreless. One specimen has a pale purplish ground colour, over which is uniformly and 

 thickly distributed freckles, dots, and irregular shaped spots of a slightly darker shade of purple, 

 and similar underlying markings of purplish-grey. The other has the ground colour very much 

 paler, rendering the markings more conspicuous, and which are larger and darker on the thicker 

 end. Length (A) 1-44 x 0-96 inches; (B) 1-43 x 0-97 inches. Figure 6 on Plate B. iii. is taken 

 from a specimen in Dr. Ryan's collection. 



Young males are dull blackish above and below; the upper parts, wings, and tail being 

 strongly glossed with purplish-blue, crown of the head purplish-blue; the plumes on the sides 

 of the occiput are much shorter tlian in the adult, and are distinctly shaded with steel-green, as 

 are also the feathers on the fore neck. Wing 5-6 inches. 



Family PTILONORHYNCHID^. 



C3-en-a.s :F>Tii_iOisroisii-2-3sroia:"U"s, Kum. 

 Ptilonorhynchus violaceus. 



SATIN BOVVEK-BIKD. 

 Pyrrhocorax violaceus, VieilL, Nouv. Diet. d'Hist. Nat., torn. VI., p. 569 (1816). 



Ptilonorhynchus holosericem, Gould, Bds. Austr., fol , Vol. IV., pi. 10 (18iS); id., Handbk. Bds. 

 Austr., Vol. I., p. 442 (1865). 



Ptilonorhynchus violaceus, Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus,, Vol. VI., p. 381 (1881). 



Adult m.\le — General colour above and below lustrous purplish-black, the centre of the apical 

 portion of the feathers black, their bases grey, the black centres showing on some of the feathers of the 

 rump and upper tail coverts, and on most of the feathers on the centre of the breast and abdomen ; lesser 

 and median wing coverts like the back; greater and primary coverts and inner secondaries black, 

 margined on their apical portion with purplish-black: jirimaries and outer secondaries black, the 

 latter Jamtly margined on the outer ivebs with purplish black ; bill bluish-horn colour at the base, 

 passing into pale greenish-yellow at the tip; legs and feet white, tinged with yellow; iris blue, with 

 a circle of red around the pujnl. Total length in the fash 12o inches, iving OS, tail ^-5 ; exposed 

 ■portion of bill 0-9, tarsus 2. 



