144 MUSCICAPID.E. 



away. It is difficult to convey any idea of this guttural sound; but from its peculiar note it is 

 known locally about Sydney as the " Frog-bird." When uttered, it is generelly accompanied 

 with a tremulous motion of its tail. The first time I saw one of these birds, an adult male, it 

 was bathing in a creek, and when disturbed by my approach, it flew into a low tree close by. 

 The peculiar lateral movements of the tail I attributed to the bird drying its feathers, but I 

 subsequently observed that this action was nearly always performed immediately after flight. 



Mr. Frank Hislop informs me that in the Bloomtield River District. North-eastern 

 Queensland, it is a resident species throughout the year, and is as a rule seen more often on 

 the tea-tree and bottle-brush flats than the higher land. 



The nest is a round open cup-shaped structure, formed chiefly of fine strips of bark, bound 

 round and held together on the outside with spiders' webs, the inside being sparingly lined with 

 fine wiry rootlets. Externally attached are small scales of bark, which are again covered with 

 a fine network of spiders' webs. Some nests have a mottled appearance, caused by the grey 

 outer surface of the bits of bark, or the red inner surface being alternately exposed; others are 

 profusely decorated on the rim and the exterior portion with pieces of pale green lichen; but all 

 are neat and beautiful structures, and are made to resemble their surroundings. The shape of 

 the nest varies with its position: if built on the top of a thick horizontal bough, it is more often 

 broader at the base than the top. .\n average nest measures externally two inclies and a 

 quarter in diameter by two inches and a quarter in depth, the inner cup measuring one inch 

 and three quarters in diameter by one inch and a half in depth. They are usually built well 

 away from the trunk of the tree, on the top of a horizontal bough, and frequently at the 

 junction of a forked dead branch, or in the angle formed by a bent or twisted liranch. The 

 different species of the larger Eucalypti and Angophorce are usually resorted to as nesting sites, 

 and as a rule the nests are built high up, at heights varying from thirty to eighty feet, but 

 on one occasion I heard of it being found within ten feet of the ground. 



The eggs are usually three, sometimes only two in number for a sitting, and are ovals or 

 rounded ovals in form, the shell being close-grained, smooth, and almost lustreless. They vary 

 in ground colour from faint bluish-white to pure white, which is dotted or spotted around the 

 centre or on the larger end of the shell with umber-brown or pale purplish-brown, intermingled 

 with underlying spots of dull violet -grey, and there usually forming a more or less well defined 

 zone. Some specimens have a band of small confluent brown blotches around the centre of 

 the shell, and are entirely devoid of underlying markings, others are very sparingly spotted and 

 dotted with pale brown, or purplish-brown, and in some eggs the dull violet-grey underlying 

 spots are more numerous; as a rule, however, whether the markings are few or many, they are 

 more thickly disposed around the centre or larger end of the shell. A set of three, taken on the 

 the 14th October, 1900, measures as follows: — Length (A) 0-67 x 0-53 inches; (B) o-68 x 0-54 

 inches; (C) o-68xo-54 inches. Another set of three, taken on the nth December, 1901, 

 measures: — (A) 073 x 0-57 inches; (B) 0-75 x 0-58 inches; (C) 076 x 0-58 inches. 



October and the three following months constitute the usual breeding season of this 

 species in Eastern .\uslralia, although nests with eggs are found more often in the neighbour- 

 hood of Sydney at the latter end of November, or in December. At Ashfield I saw fledgelings 

 being fed by their parents at the end of January. The male assists in the duties of incubation, 

 and, in the Upper Clarence River District, Mr. G. Savidge informs me that the male also does 

 the principal part of the nest building. 



Myiagra concinna, Gould, I regard only as a slightly smaller northern, and north-western 

 race, hardly separable from the present species. Gould's description of the male of M. plumhea 

 and M. concinna in his folio edition of the "Birds of Australia," are alike, word for word; 

 so are his plates, except that the dark leaden grey colour of M. concinna does not extend 

 so far down on to the fore-neck as in the plate of .1/. plumhea. His descriptions of the 



