MEGALURUS. 257 



wide expanses of water. At this time it may always be found amongst the dense tussocks of 

 'cane-grass' growing in these swamps; but during the hot summer months, when the water has 

 dried up, the most careful search would fail to reveal one of these little birds, although the 

 'cane-grass' is still as dense as ever. So feeble are their powers of flight that, if driven on to 

 the plain, they can be easily caught, for they cannot fly more than a short distance at a time 

 and so slowly that a man on foot can overtake them. It has often been a source of wonder to 

 me how these birds vanish in the mysterious way they do, considering the open nature of the 

 country between one cane-swamp and another, which are often miles apart." 



Dr. W. Macgillivray writes me: — "I have not elsewhere come across Megalurus gramineus 

 away from swampy localities except at Coleraine, in Western Victoria, where they are to be 

 found frequenting and nesting in box-thorn hedges in the centre of the town. A swamp once 

 existed in the locality many years ago, and force of habit no doubt tends to bring them back 

 to their hereditary haunt, even though conditions have been entirely altered." 



The nest varies greatly in size, the outer materials of which it is formed, and the position in 

 which it is placed. Usually it is a deep cup-shaped structure, formed externally of dried aquatic 

 plants and coarse grasses. Inside it is lined with feathers, the entrance being contracted at the 

 top and sometimes partially hidden by one or two feathers worked into the inside which curl 

 over the entrance. Others are dome-shaped or globular in form, with an entrance in the top, 

 and are constructed externally of soft fibrous rootlets and slightly lined inside with feathers. In 

 the vicinity of houses, domestic fowls' and ducks' feathers are more often used. An average nest 

 measures externally five inches in height by four inches in diameter; depth inside, three inches. 

 Near Melbourne, and in Albert Park, I have found as many as four nests containing the usual 

 complement of four eggs, in a single afternoon. Each nest was built in the centre of a tussock 

 of long rushes, within six or eight inches of the water; but in the swampy tea-tree scrubs that 

 formerly lined the sides of the Lower Yarra River, I ha\-e found it constructed in the bushy 

 forks of a tea-tree at a height of five feet. In the mangrove-covered tidal flats of the Upper 

 Parramatta River, near Sydney, it is built among the upright leafy pronged branches of these 

 trees; and in the neighbourhood of Tempe, Botany, and Manly and Narrabeen Lagoons, in the 

 centre of a tuft of rushes, coarse grasses, or reeds, growing in or near the water. 



The eggs are generally four in number for a sitting, less frequently three, and very rarely 

 five. They vary from oval to elongate-oval in form, the shell being close-grained and its 

 surface smooth and lustreless. Typically they are of a reddish-white ground colour, which is 

 almost obscured with numerous freckles of purplish-red uniformly distributed over the surface 

 of the shell. Some specimens have well defined zones or caps on the larger end, or have a few 

 underlying markings of violet-grey, the latter shade predominating generally on the thicker 

 end. One set I took was almost a pure white ground colour, and entirely devoid of markings 

 except on the larger end, where they had a few minute freckles and a broad clouded zone of a 

 deep purplish-red. As a rule the markings are small and seldom assume the form of blotches. 

 A set of four, taken at Newington, on the Parramatta River, measures: — Length (A) 076 x 0-53 

 inches; (B) 077 x 0-54 inches; (C) 077x0-55 inches; (D) 075x0-54 inches. A set of three, 

 taken at Cook's River, measures: — (A) 0-72x0-52 inches; (B) 0-72 x 0-55 inches; (C) 0-71 x 

 0-53 inches. 



Mr. J. A. Thorpe has been successful in obtaining a number of the nests of this species in 

 the neighbourhood of Randwick and Botany during the past ten years. Most of the nests with 

 eggs were found in November and December, but the dates of obtaining them with fresh eggs 

 range from 4th October to the 20th December. The sets taken were mostly four, not in- 

 frequently three, and in one instance five in number for a sitting. 



August and the five following months constitute the usual breeding season of this species 

 in New South Wales and Victoria. 



