584 NESTS AND EGGS OE AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



Leeuwin, during October, 1889, I made the following curious entry in 

 my field book : — 



" Four or five Bronze Cuckoos, in shining coats, making a great 

 stir in a low tree, chasing each other, and all the while making melan- 

 choly, tremulous, whistUng noises. Anxious to ascertain the cause of 

 the disturbance, I approached too close to the httle company, wliich 

 immediately departed to another tree." 



Occasionally two Bronze Cuckoos' eggs are deposited in the same 

 nest. I find that under date 2nd November, 1886, I took a pair of 

 bronzy coloured eggs from a nest of the Yellow-tailed Tit ( Aroiitlnza ), 

 near Doncaster, Victoria. Mr. C. French, jimr., recorded in the 

 " Victorian Naturalist," a similar instance that came imder liis obser- 

 vation during the season 1889. 



Other species of the Cuckoos' eggs are occasionally foimd in the 

 same bird's nest with that of the Bronze Cuckoo, as Mr. Brent's note, 

 quoted imder the Fan-tailed Cuckoo, and the following remarks by 

 Dr. Ramsay prove; "From a nest of Acantlihfi ii/iiki I remember 

 taking, in the year 1855, no less than six eggs. Among them were 

 three Bronze Cuckoos' — two of Ghalcites plagosus, and one of C. hasalis. 

 In November last (1864), we took another nest of the same species, 

 containing one of each variety. In this instance, one of the eggs of 

 C. plagosus was embedded below the lining of the nest, and had 

 evidently been laid just before the nest was completed, as is not 

 infrequently the case. The other egg, which was a specimen of 

 C. basalis, my brother Percy placed in a nest of Acanthiza lineata, 

 which he had found on the previous day, and left for such an occasion. 

 On returning to it about a week afterwards, we foimd the young Cuckoo 

 had been hatched. After a lapse of seven days, the bronze feathers 

 were just bcginnuig to appear, and in about a week or ten days more 

 the yoimg bird was able to fly, the bronze on the wings, head and back, 

 now showing plainly. 



" Now, as the apertures of the nests of the Acfiittliixce are exceedingly 

 small, a qiicstion naturally arises whether the Bronze Cuckoo lays its 

 eggs in the nest, or places them there by some other means. 



" To this I can only answer that the apertures of those nests which 

 have contained Cuckoos' eggs are nearly twice as wide as the openings 

 of those nests which we have taken before the Cuckoo's egg has been 

 deposited in them. Tliis is more easily noticed in the nest of A. li/icn/a, 

 of which the aperture is very small, and nearly covered over with a 

 hood." 



458. — CiiALCococcYX MALAYANus, Rafiles. — (384) 

 C. minutillus, Gould. 



LITTLE BRONZE CUCKOO. 



Figure. — Gould : IJints of .Austr.ili.i, fol., .supp., pi. 56. 



Reference. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. xix., p. 298. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs. — Ramsay : Proc. Zool. See, p. 600 

 (1875) ; North : Proc. Linn. Soc, N.S. Wales, vol. ix., 2nd 

 ser., p, 41 (i8(j4) ; Campbell : Victorian Naturalist (i8g8). 



Geagraphical Distribution. — North-west Australia, Northern Tcrri- 



