5g6 NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



The whistling sound of the wings when the bird is flying is very 

 pecuhar, while the posing of some of the birds when perching is ex- 

 ceedingly odd, especially when they throw their tails into the air, an 

 effort wliich seemingly almost overbalances the birds. 



The first recorded nest of tliis species was met with by Gould, who 

 found it in a low tree on the great plains on the Lower Nanioi, 23rd 

 December, 1839. The frail stick nest contained two eggs, from wliich 

 the discoverer took his original description. 



So carelessly constructed are some Pigeous' nests that we hear of 

 a squab sometimes falling through and getting hanged in the twigs by 

 the neck till it is dead. 



In the great North-west interior of Queensland, Mr. Price Fletcher 

 observes that there this pretty Pigeon generally breeds about six feet 

 from the ground, and so loosely is the nest put together that he has 

 frequently seen the eggs roll oft' when the sitting bird was flushed. 



Although spring and siuiimer may be the chief breeding months 

 of the lovely Crested Pigeon, I suspect, Uke most of our native Pigeons, 

 it lays almost any time of the year. 



Touching laying during the off season, ]\lr. G. H. Morton, Murray 

 Meadows, on 31st March, season 1894, found a nest of this species 

 containing two eggs on a .stump. On the 10th April following he 

 found another nest, also containing two eggs, built in a saltbush. 



I have eggs of the Crested Pigeon from Mr. H. C. Burkitt, collected 

 at Cooper's Creek, 23rd March, 1887. 



S UB-F AMI LY GEOTRyGONIN.a:. 



556. — Leucosarcia picata, Latham. — (461) 

 WONGA-WONGA PIGEON. 



Figure. — Gould : Birds of Australia, fol., vol. v., pi. 63. 



Reference. — Cat. Birds Brit. Mus., vol. xxi., p. 607. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs. — *Ramsay : Proc. Zool. Soc, p. 116 

 (1S76); Campbell: Southern Science Record (1883); North: 

 Austn. Mus. Cat., p. 272 (1SS9). 



Geoyraphical Distributiun. — Queensland, New South Wales, and 

 A^ictoria. 



Next. — Very frail in structure, composed of sticks or twigs placed 

 on a horizontal branch of a tree at a height of from ten to twenty feet 

 above the groimd, in scrub or forest. 



^mi"- — Clutch, two ; elliptical in shape, occasionally more pointed al 

 (jiic end ; texture of shell comparatively fine ; surface glossy ; colour, 



* No dimensions given. 



