GERYGONE. 201 



From ^[r. Boyd I have obtained several nests and sets of eg.t^s for description, also the 

 female that was captured on the nest. The nests of Gcrygonc magnirostris are long pendant 

 structures varying from sixteen to twenty-four inches in length, the drooping end of a nearly 

 leafless twig being covered with an irregular layer of nest-material, about two inches and a half 

 in diameter, and from nine to twelve inches in length before the nest proper is commenced. 

 This is of a domed form, with a protecting hood well concealing the narrow entrance, and 

 terminating at the lower extremity of the dome in a beard or tail, which is typical of the nests 

 of this genus. They are composed of shreds of bark, cocoa-nut fibre, dried grasses and weeds, 

 skeletons of leaves, and the silky covering of spiders' nests, all matted together, and resembling 

 more a hanging mass of di'bris left by floods than a nest. The interior cavities of the nests 

 are small and are warmly lined with feathers. An average one measures as follows: — total 

 length twenty-two inches; from the top of the covered portion of the stem on which it is built to 

 the swelling of the dome ten inches; domed portion or nest proper: length seven inches, breadth 

 five inches: beard or tail underneath dome fi\e inches; entrance to nest one inch in diameter; 

 interior cavity : height three inches and a (juarter, breadth two inches and a quarter; base of 

 interior portion of protecting hood over entrance two inches. The eggs are two or three in 

 number for a sitting, and vary in shape from oval to elongate-oval, the shell being close-grained 

 and its surface smooth and lustreless. Typically they are of a rich pinkish-white ground 

 colour, which is almost obscured by exceedingly minute freckles and dots of pinkish-red, 

 becoming thicker towards the larger end, where, in some instances intermingled with a few 

 spots of dull purplish-grey, an indistinct zone is formed. Others have the markings larger 

 and of a darker shade of red, etjually distributed over the shell, with one or two fine hair- 

 lines or small coalesced patches on the larger end. The set of two, on which the female was 

 captured, measure alike 0-7 x 0-46 inches. A set of three, taken on the ist of January, 1892, 

 measures: — Length (A) 0-69 x o'5 inches; (B) 0-67 x 0-47 inches; (C) 0-67 x 0-49 inches. A 

 set of two, taken on the loth October, 1892, measures: — (A) 0-65 x 0-48 inches; (B) 0-65 x 0-47 

 inches. 



Since my descriptions of the nest and eggs of Gevvgonc iiiagiilrosii'is were published in 

 "The Ibis,""' in 1893, Mr. Boyd has kindly supplemented his information relative to the 

 finding of other nests of this species. His record for a normal breeding season is finding a nest 

 with one fresh egg on the ist September, 1893, and, on the 6th January, 1894, procuring two 

 nests, each with two eggs, one of them also containing a bronze coloured egg of a Cuckoo. 

 Between these two dates Mr. Boyd found many nests containing eggs and young. On the 17th 

 April, 1896, he wrote as follows: — "On the 6th instant I found a nest of Gcrygonc magnirostris, 

 built on a vine tendril near the verandah of my brother's house, containing three eggs. This 

 position is further removed from water than I have found one before, and the nest was 

 comparatively slightly built, doubtless owing to the absence of drift material with which the 

 lower branches of the trees on the creek banks are covered." On the 21st October following, 

 Mr. Boyd saw presumably the same pair of birds constructing their nest on the same vine. 



This species is often the foster-parent of one of the Bronze Cuckoos, the eggs of which are 

 of a deep olivaceous-brown, minutely marked with small black dots on the larger end, and not 

 unlike the eggs oi Lamprococcyx plagosus, but larger, darker, and the surface of the shell smooth 

 and glossy. Three Cuckoo's eggs, taken from different nests of Gcrygonc magnirostris, measure 

 as follows: — (A) 0-83 x 0-55 inches; (B) 0-78 x 0-53 inches; (C) o-8 x 0-53 inches. The average 

 measurement of six eggs of Lamprococcyx plagosus, taken from nests in the neighbourhood of 

 Sydney, is 0-72 inches in length by o-3i inches in breadth. 



• "The Ibis," 1893, p. 37V 

 Vt 



