102 NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



December respectively. The egg taken on the latter date fell to my 

 collection. 



Mr. Shepherd disconcerted another pair of Catei-pillar Catchers 

 (Jardine Campephagea) by taking four nests running: — (1) In a pepper- 

 mint (eucalypt), the 18th December, e§^g much incubated; (2) in a 

 peppermint, on 27th December (to Mr. French's collection); (3) in a 

 banksia, on 8th Janviary (to Mr. Le Souef's collection) ; (4) in a casuarina, 

 at a height of about twelve feet, on 19th Januai-y (to Dr. Ryan's 

 collection). It is interesting to obsei-ve that the time taken to build and 

 lay another egg averaged between ten and eleven days (actual intervals, 

 twelve, ten, nine, twelve, eleven days respectively). Both birds aided 

 in the constniction of their nest. 



Following Mr. Shepherd's example, Mr. S. W. Jackson, in the Clarence 

 River district. New South Wales, the succeeding season, made a raid on 

 the Catei-pillar Catchers in liis locality, and was successful in finding 

 no less than eight nests with each a single egg, the first being found 

 21st November, the last 9th Febniary. The nests were difficult to find, 

 and still more difficult to cUmb to. 



Mr. Jackson has thoughtfull}- sent nie for perusal the whole of his 

 interesting field notes pertaining to the finding of the above nests. They 

 were all found in eucalypts, mostly blood-wood and iron-bark. Two or 

 three times the birds removed their partially made nest after it was dis- 

 covered. In one instance, although the egg was beautifully marked, it 

 was unusually small, nearly round, and without a yolk. One pair of birds 

 were robbed three times in succession. It was noticed that the female 

 occasionally makes the buzzing noise like the male, usually during wet 

 weather, and that she is fed, at all events sometimes, on the nest by 

 her mate. 



The enthusiasm of Mr. Jackson when in the field is unbounded. Dining 

 one of liis outings (Christmas Day, by the way), at a quarter to five in the 

 moiTung. he was awakened by a male Caterpillar Catcher making liis buzzing- 

 like call in a tree leaning over the tent. HaK-dressed, Mr. Jackson hunied 

 out, lea\ing his companions in " the land of di^eanis, ' and in less than a 

 minute foimd the nest, built about forty feet from the ground in a blood- 

 wood, and the female sitting thereon. Returning to the tent, he aroused 

 his sleeping companions, and before six o'clock the nest, with egg blown, 

 were packed away. " The next move was our breakfast," naively adds 

 Mr. Jackson. 



The finding of the last nest (9th February) that season is worth 

 recounting in Mr. Jackson's own words : — " I was not long in the gully 

 CWatt's) when I heard the loud cluck-like note of the male bird, followed by 

 his peculiar buzzing noise. I ti^acked him for a considerable time, and was 

 just giving up all hopes of finding the nest when all at once he alighted 

 in an iron-bark tree close to mv hiding-place — a clump of small giun 

 saphngs. He flew down to a hoiizontal forked limb with a gi-ub m liis 

 beak, and, before manv seconds had passed, ran along the hnib towards 

 the fork, looking carefully around evei-y few steps, and finally reaching the 

 fork, dropped the giiib and flew away. On going over to the tree, from 

 underneatli I could see a shght sign of a nest, and the tail of the hen bird 



