.VESTS AXD EGGS 0/-' AUST/iALlAN BlUDS. yt) 



()hiii'rv(ition.-i. — The JIaniicode is a member of the Bird of Paradise 

 family. Gould did uot know the exact position this bird should take in 

 the natural ^yste)n. so he dumped it down after the Drongo Shrike, and 

 before the Flycatchers. His original description was taken from a tine 

 male obtained at Cape York by JIaegillivray in 1849. 



Forty-eight years afterwards it fell to the honour of Mr. HaiT}' Baniard 

 to discover in the same locality a nest and eggs of this rare and local 

 species, and to Mr. Lo Souef to describe them. However, there is either 

 a clerical or typographical error in the shorter dimensions of the eggs as 

 given in the "Ibis." The following are Mr. Le Souef's remarks, from 

 the " Ibis," which were accompanied by a well-executed photogi-aph of tlie 

 nest: — "Mr. H. G. Baniard found the nest and two eggs of this species 

 on January 23rd, 1897, near Somerset; he states that the birds were not 

 numerous, and that they were generally in paii's. He shot a female in 

 the beginning of December that had laid an egg a short time previously, 

 but though he hunted about for some time he could not find the nest. 

 The birds were remarkably shy, and it was impossible to get near enough 

 in the sciiib to watch them. It is probable that the egg of this bii-d will 

 always be a rarity, as the nests are hard to find ; they are veiy similar to 

 those of the Drongo Shrike ((Jhihia hrm-teata), and the eggs are also 

 somewhat alike. The nest is a shallow, open structure, and is made of 

 curly vine tendrils, the inside being lined with the same material, only 

 finer ; and on the branch on which the nest was built, and in conjunction 

 with it, an orchid was giowing, a portion of which the bird had worked 

 into the outside of its nest. It was built on a horizontal fork of a tall 

 scrub-tree gi-owing in forest counti-y, about twenty yards from dense scrub ; 

 the height of the nest from the ground was about forty-eight feet." 



FAMILY— ORIOLID^ : ORIOLES. 



58. — Oriolus AFFiNis, Gould. ^ ( 2!S-1) 



NORTHERN ORIOLE. 



Reference. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. iii., p i88 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs.— Gou\d: Birds of Australia, Handbook, 



vol. i.. p. 465 (1865); Diggles: Companion Gould's Handbook. 



(1877); Ramsay : Proc. Linn. Soc, N S. Wales, vol. vi.,p. 576 



(1S81) : North: .\ustn. Mus. Cat., pi. ii., fig. 12 {1889); 



Le Souef: Victorian Naturalist, vol. xvi., p. 62 (iSgg). 



Geui/ra/iliiral Distribution. — North-west Australia, Northern Territory 

 and Queensland. 



}ffst. — Open, very deep, large ; formed of very narrow strips of paper- 

 like bark mixed with a few twigs; lined inside with very fine wiry 

 twigs (Gould). 



