80 OUIOI.ID.S. 



sixteen miles from Cairns, in small flocks from five to seven in number, feeding; in company 

 with Calorm's mdallica, on the berries of a tree. At that time the plumage was much abraded, 

 and he found it useless shooting them for specimens. 



Writing from the P>loomfield River District, in Xorth-eastern Queensland, in October, 

 1896, Mr. Robert Hislop, Junr., sends me the following note: — '-Oriolus flavicinctiis is a partial 

 migrant, arriving here generally at the end of June, and departing again about the end of 

 February. Some seasons the}' are more numerous than others, and when there is an abundance 

 of native fruits and berries many of them remain throuu'hout the year. Owing, however, to the 

 comparatively light rainfall during tlie last three years, and the consequent dearth of their 

 food supply, these birds have been unusually scarce, and wliat few visited us soon took their 

 departure for some more rain-favoured district. When they remain to breed, they are usually 

 found about lagoons and in tiie mangroves along the banks of rivers and creeks. The nest is 

 an open cup-shaped structure, and is built at the junction of a thin forked twig at the extremity 

 of a horizontal branch, usually of a Melaleuca, and frequently in one overlianging a water-hole 

 or salt-water creek, at an altitude from twenty to forty feet. It is formed of long strips of 

 tea-tree bark and bark-fibre, and lined inside with very fine twigs. Two eggs are laid for a 

 sitting. The months of November, December, and January, constitute the usual breeding 

 season." 



.\ nest of this species, taken about eight miles from Cooktown, is an open cup-shaped 

 structure, and is securely fastened by the rim to a thin forked horizontal branch. It is 

 outwardly formed of long strips of tea-tree bark, bark lihro. thin dried leaves, plant tendrils, 

 and a small quantity of spider's-web, the inside being lined entirely witli fine plant twigs; 

 externally its average measurements are six inches in diameter by three inches in depth, the 

 inner cup measuring three inches and a half in diameter by two inches in depth. 1 he eggs 

 vary in shape, colour, and disposition of their markings, as do those of On'oliis sagittaiiif, which 

 they closely resemble, especially those taken in the northern portions of the continent, from 

 which they cannot be distinguished. .\ set of two, taken in the Bloomfield Ri\er District, on 

 the loth December, 1894, are oval in form and slightly pointed at the smaller end, the shell 

 being close grained, and its surface smooth and glossy. They are of a uniform pale creamy- 

 brown ground colour, which is irregularly blotched and finely dotted with rich umber-brown, 

 and a few similar underlying markings of dull inky-grey. Length: — (.-V) 1-26 x 0-92 inches; 

 (B) 1-25 X 0-92 inches, .\nother set of two, taken near Cooktown on the 2nd December, 1899, 

 have the ground colour of a pale brownish-white, one specimen being heavily blotched and finely 

 dotted with different shades of umber-brown, and a few subsurface markings of blackish-grey ; 

 on the other the markings are much smaller, darker, and round;'d in shape, some of them 

 being in clusters, others are in straight lines, the underlying blackish-grey markings being more 

 numerous, and forming an ill-defined zone on the larger end. Length: — (A) 1-23 x 0-92 inches; 

 (B) I-25 X o*93 inches. 



Dr. A. l>. Meyer, Director of the Dresden ^Museum, who has contributed so largely to a 

 knowledge of the Papuan avifauna, also of the nests and eggs of many birds common alike to 

 Northern Australia and New Guinea, described and figured the eggs of the present species 

 many years ago.^'^ In the same publication there is also a description and figure I of the egg of 

 another well-known North .\ustralian species, Cracticus quoyi, Quoy's l!utcher-bird. 



* Zeitschr. f. ges. Orn., i., p. 292. p!. xvii , fig. i (1884). 

 t Op c'lt , p. 283, pi. x\\\\.. figs. 2-4 (1884). 



