XESTS A.VP EGGS OF ACS/KAfJAX BIRDS. jo', 



sticking over the side. I had uo climbing requisites with me, &o I had to 

 scramble the tree as best I could, and a difficult task it was. However, 

 1 at last reached the nest, and took from it one beautiful fresh egg. While 

 sitting down, resting after my climb, to my surprise I noticed both male 

 and female birds pulling the nest to pieces." 



80- — Lalaoe tricolor^ Swainson. — (112; 

 Campephnga humeral is. Gould. 



WHITE-SHOULDERED CATERPILLAR CATCHER. 



Figure — Gould ; Birds of Australia, fol . vol. ii.. pi. 63 



Reference. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol iv , p. 92. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs. — Gould ; Birds of Australia (1848), also 



Handbook, vol. i., p 205 (1865); North: .\ustn Mus. Cat., 



p 78 (1889). 



Geiigraphical Didrihution. — -Whole of Australia and Tasmania (casual), 

 also New Guinea-. 



Nest. — Small and shallow, loosely composed of fine stalks of plants, 

 bark, grass, A-c, with the addition of cob-webs, chiefly on the outside, and 

 situated generally in the uppermost pronged branches of trees or saplings, 

 sometimes on a dead horizontal branch. Dimensions of a fah'iy-sized nest, 

 3 inches over all, by 2 inches in depth ; egg cavity, 2 inches across by 

 1 inch deep. 



■^'.'/.'/*- — Clutch, two to three; rouncUsh oval in form; texture 

 of shell fine; siuiace glossy; colom-, light or dull wannish-green, 

 somewhat heavily blotched, especially about the apex, where the 

 markings are confluent, with umber or reddish-brown and dull-slate. 

 There is considerable variation in the gi-ound-colour, which is lighter in 

 some instances, darker in others, and frequently nearly covered with the 

 reddish mai-kings. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch : (1) -81 x -64, 

 (2) -79 X -63, (3) -78 x -65. (Plate 7.) 



Ohservations. — At one period or other of the year this bird is common 

 to the whole of Austraha. Its prevalence in the southern parts, however, 

 is only noticed in summer, when it breeds, rettuning northward again in 

 winter. It used to be a weU-known bird to collectors years ago in the 

 vicinity of Melbourne, where in an afternoon two or three nests might 

 easily bo detected by the bird sitting in the topmost forked branches of 

 black wattles (Acacia). 



The White-shouldered Caterpillar Catcher airives at its most southerly 

 limits about the beginning of September (I have noticed the bird in 

 Riverina on the 1st, again at Mordialloc, Victoria, on the 19th), com- 

 mencing to breed almost immediatelv, or by the latter end of that month. 

 The breeding season continues into Januan' or even Febiiiaiy. 



Both Gould and Gilbert agi-ee that during that particular season the 

 male birds become vers' pugnacious bv attacking each other in a desperate 



