LALAOE. 117 



From North-eastern Queensland, Mr. E. A. C. Olive kindly forwarded me an adult male 

 and female of this species, together with the following notes: — "These birds are numerous in 

 the Cooktown District, and fre<iuent the trees in the garden about my cottage, feeding on 

 caterpillars and the fruit of a native fig-tree. The branches of one of these trees overhangs my 

 verandah, so I am able to watch them within a distance of three yards. For nine months of 

 the year they appear to go in pairs; but during our cool months — June, July, and August — they 

 assemble in small flocks of about twelve in number, and freiiuent the grass and low bushes. 

 They utter a note, not unlike that of the Eastern Bower-bird (Chlamydodcva oricntalis), but 

 the sound is softer and more rolled. In Noxember and December they build, making a 

 nearly flat nest, very like that of Graucalns nidaiiops, but exceedingly small in proportion to 

 the size of the bird. Generally it is built in the fork of a small tree or shrub, about ten feet 

 from the ground, and only one egg of a light green ground colour, with reddish-brown blotches, 

 is deposited for a sitting." 



The nests of birds of this genus, although resembling miniature tenements of the different 

 species of Cuckoo-Shrike, are usually built on thinner forked branches, and have the outer portion 

 of the nest worked over and around the branch on which they are placed. The first nest and 

 egg I saw of this species, were taken by Mr. li. D. Fitzgerald near Ballina, at the mouth of the 

 Richmond River, on the 4th November, 1887, and were described by him in the same year.* 



The nest is an open, shallow, and exceedingly small structure, and is built at the junction 

 of a thin forked horizontal branch, near the extremity of a limb. One now before me is formed 

 of fine plant stalks, wiry rootlets, and dried grasses; the rim, outer portions of the nest, and the 

 fork on which it is built being thickly coated with spider's web. It is of just sufficient size to 

 hold one egg, and is actually smaller than the nest of its lesser congener L. tricolor, measuring two 

 inches and one-eighth in external diameter by one inch and a quarter in depth, and internally 

 one inch and a third in diameter by three-quarters of an inch in depth. 



Only one egg is laid for a sitting. They vary from oval to an ellipse in form, the shell 

 being close-grained and its surface smooth and slightly lustrous. The ground colour varies 

 from bright apple-green to pale green, and is uniformly blotched, spotted, or marked with small 

 irregular-shaped streaks of reddish or chestnut-brown, in some specimens the markings being 

 larger and predominating on the thicker end of the shell, where they assume the form of a 

 well defined zone. Two eggs measure as follows: — (A) i xo'73 inches; (B) 0-97 x o'68 inches. 

 These eggs are not to be distinguished from those of the next species, L. tricolor, except for 

 their larger size. 



In Eastern Australia, the breeding season commences in October, and continues until the 

 middle of February. 



Lalage tricolor. 



WHITE-SHOULDERED CATERPILLAR-EATEK. 



Ceblepyris tricolor. Swains., Zool. Journ., Vol. I., p. 467 (1825). 



Campephaga humeralis, Gould, Bds. Austr., fol., Vol. XL, pi. 63 (1848); id., Haadbk. Bds. Austr., 

 Vol. I., p. 204 (1865). 



Lalage tricolor, Sharps, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. IV., p. 92 (1879); Salvad., Orn. Pap. et Molucc, 

 Ft. XL, p. 100(1881). 



Adult male — General colour above glossy greenish-black ; quills black; lesser, median, and inner 

 greater wing-coverts white, the latter with a mesial streak oj black except at tlte tip; outer series oj the 

 greater wing-coverts black, narrowly edged with white; the secondaries externally margined with white; 



* Proc. Linn. Soc. N.S.W., 2nd ser., Vol. ii., p. 971 (1887). 



