NESTS AXD EGGS UI- AUSTRALIAN BI/WS. 



539 



Podargus altogether, built on the hoiizontal branches of the eucalyptus 

 trees in the open forest; and on each it was the male bird that was 

 sitting. Two of the nests had eggs, and one young." 



Eggs have becu taken during the montiis of October, November and 

 December. 



431. — PoDAKGUS sTRiGoiDEs, Latham. — (40 and 41) 

 P. cuvieri, Vigors and Horsfield. 



TAWNY FROGMOUTH. 



Figure. — Gould : Birds u£ Australia, fol., vol. li., pis. 3 and 4. 



Reference. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. xvi., p. 631. 



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

 also Handbook, vol. i., pp. 85 and 88 (1S65) ; North : Austn. 

 Mus. Cat., pp. 26 and 27, pi. 6, figs. 3 and 4 (1889). 



G'eu)/rapliical Distrihutiun. — Queensland, New South Wales, Vic- 

 toria, South Australia and Tasmania. According to Harteit, Austraha 

 in general. 



Ned. — Usually a frail (but occasionally a thick) platform composed 

 of dead twigs, sometimes intermingled with grass, rootlets, &c., and 

 genei'ally placed in the fork of a horizontal limb of any suitable tree 

 or on the sphntered butt where a branch has been broken off, in open 

 or thick forest. Diameter, 7 to 8 inches. (See illustration.) 



Eijtju. — Clutch, two usually, rare exceptions three ; elhptical in 

 shape ; texture somewhat coarse ; surface slightly glossy and very 

 minutely pitted ; colour, perfectly white. Dimensions in inches of a 

 clutch from Victoria : (1) 1-73 x 1-18, (2) 1-65 x 1'16 ; of a pair taken in 

 Tasmania, which has here and there small limy excrescences on the 

 sui-face : (1) 1-8 x 1-24, (2) 1-71 x 1-24; and of a triplet of much smaller- 

 sized examples taken in Queensland: (1) 1-59 x 1-16, (2) 1-58 x 1-2], 

 (3) 1-53 X 1-17. 



Observations. — The eight species of Podargi enumerated by Gould 

 have been reduced, in the hght of more recent Imowledge and investiga- 

 tion, to four or five species and sub-species. However, the great 

 natm-alist e\'idently had some misgivings about the multiphcity of his 

 species, because he said no one group of Australian birds had given him 

 so much difficulty in discriminating the species as the Podargi, and 

 especially asked Australians, and others of course, to ascertain if the 

 difference in colovu' which occurs in these birds be distinctive of their 

 sex, and, if so, to which the respective tints of red and grey pertain. 



According to the careful comparisons b}' Mr. Ernest Hartert in the 

 Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum (vol. xvi.) it will be noticed 

 that itndcr the heading of the Tawny-shouldered Podargus, or Frog- 

 mouth (P. strigoides), is included P. cuvieri, P. gouldi, and the ever 

 doubtful P. 7)irgnrcphahis. 



