MACHiERORIIYNCHUS. 



147 



from the ground, and projected so far from the other branches, that I could hardly have 

 obtained the eggs in any other manner. On the 25th December, I found another nest 

 in Stony Forest, forty feet from the ground, on the horizontal fork of a small partly dead 

 brancii. The female sat at intervals, and both seemed to fly occasionally to the nest and feed 

 young ones. On the 25th October, 1887, three of these beautiful birds visited my garden at 

 Circular Head, two males and a female. They were busily engaged catching insects within a 

 few feet of me." Dr. Holden has also frequently noted these birds for many successive years 

 in different parts of North-western and Southern Tasmania from the middle of October until 

 the second week in March. 



In New South Wales, Mr. E. H. Lane found this species breeding at Wambangalang, in 

 November, 189S. The nest was built at the junction of a forked horizontal branch of a stunted 

 gum, about ten feet from the ground. The male was sitting when he first observed it, but 

 fluttered along the ground on his approaching the nest. On returning to the nest some time 

 after, he saw both the nrale and the female. It contained two eggs, which he reached from his 

 horse while standing in the stirrups. 



The eggs are usually three in number for a sitting, oval in form, the shell being close- 

 grained, smooth, and lustrous. They vary in ground colour from dull white to a very faint 

 bluish or greenish-white, and are dotted, spotted, or irregularly marked with brown or pale 

 purplish-brown, and underlying spots of dull purplish-grey, the markings being confined, with 

 the exception of a few straggling spots and dots, to the larger end of the shell, where a more or 

 less well defined zone is formed. In some specimens the pale purplish-brown niarkinf,'s are 

 minutely centred with small purplish-black dots. A set of three, taken on the 23rd November, 

 1886, by Dr. L. Holden, measures:— Length (A) 079 x o-6 inches; (B) 077 x 0-59 inches; (C) 

 Q.jy'^o-sS inches. A set of two, taken by Mr. E. D. Atkinson, in November, 1888, at Table 

 Cape, North-western coast of Tasmania, measure:— (A) 078 x 0-58 inches; (B) 077 x 0.38 inches. 



In New South Wales and Tasmania, November and two following months constitute the 

 usual breeding season of this species. 



C3-en-as 3^v^..^OI3:-iE:ROI3I3:-2-3SrCI3:TJS, Gould. 



Macheerorhynchus flaviventer. 



BOAT-BILLED FLYCATCHER. 

 Machcerirhyuchus flaviventer, Gould, Proo. Zool. Soc, 1850, p. 277; id., Bds. Austr., fol,, Suppl., 



pi. 11 (1869). 

 Machmrorhynchus flaviventer, Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. IV., p. 390 (1879). 



Adult m.\le— ffenera/ colour above black; bases 0/ the feathers on the back of a dull olive-green; 

 upper rving-coverts black, the median and greater series broadly tipped with white; primaries and 

 secondaries black, the outer rvebs and tips of the innermost series margined with white; upper tail- 

 coverts black; tail black, the six central feathers narrowly tipped with white, the remainder largely 

 tipped with white, the outer web of the outermost feather white; feathers in front and below the eye, 

 and the ear-coverts black; a line of feathers extending from the nostril above the eye and on to the 

 sides of the occiput bright yellow; chin and throat white; sides of the neck, all the under surface, 

 and under tail-coverts bright yellow; bill and legs black; iris black. Total length 4-7o inches, wing 

 2-3.5, tail 2, bill OS, tarsus 0-6. 



Adult vkmklv.— General colour above olive-green; upper wing-coverts brown the median and 

 greater coverts tipped with white; primaries and secondaries broivn, margined externally with olive- 

 green on the basal portion, and white towards the tips; tail Jeathers blackish-brown, externally 



