NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRAL! AN BIRDS. 703 



character of the season or rains. T believe eggs have been taken in 

 New Sout}i Wales in Jiily. 



Gilbert, in the Wongan Hills, Western Australia, took the first 

 Mallec Hens he ever found on the 28th September (1842). Mr. T. 

 Carter, further north, on the Miu'chison, has seen eggs in the hands 

 of the natives 20th September. The season (1884) I visited the Mallee, 

 in Victoria, laying commenced also in September. The season of 1888 

 another collector watched eighteen Mallee Hen mounds, and none 

 contained an egg before the middle of October. Then again, taking 

 the terminal end of the laying season, and still in the same district 

 (Wimmera), Mr. A. Esdaile, about the 27th March, 1887, found yoimg 

 birds just emerging from the shell ; and later still, Mr. E. H. Hill, 

 \vriting from Bendigo, luider date 19th May, 1895, says: "A pair of 

 Mallee Hen's eggs was Isrouglit to the School of ilines from Boort, 

 said to have been taken from the mound last Sunday. I blew them 

 myself, and one was perfectly fresh, though the other was addled." 



Toucliing the complement of eggs to a mound, Gilbert stated that 

 Mr. Roe, the Surveyor-General, who examined several mounds dimng 

 his expedition to the interior, 1836, found the eggs nearly ready to 

 hatch in November, and invariably seven or eight in niunber, while 

 another authority informed him of an instance of fourteen being taken 

 from one mound. Sk George Grey, also mentioned by Gould, says 

 eight to ten eggs axe laid, and if the mound is robbed, the female will 

 lay again in the same nest, but will only lay the full number of eggs 

 twice in a season. My brother, already mentioned, found thirteen 

 eggs, some just hatched, in one instance. On one occasion, in the 

 Mallee (Victoria), Mr. Charles McLennan states he found the extra- 

 ordinary number of twenty eggs in a mound at one time, but, he adds, 

 five of them were stale. Mr. James Macdougall, writing from Yorke 

 Peninsula, South Australia, states : — " The Mallee Hen breeds on the 

 northern part of the foot of the Peninsula, where the mallee is tall, 

 dense, and almost impenetrable to man. I was fortimate to meet a 

 fanner, November, 1885, with a dozen eggs, which he had just obtained 

 from a mound." By far the finest lot I ever saw from the one mound 

 was eighteen in the collection of Mr. W. White, Reedbeds, South 

 Austraha. They were all the " pink of perfection," and apparently 

 taken as they were deposited. Tlie measurements varied from 3-68 to 

 3-36 X 2-38 to 2-27 inches. 



Mr. Dudley Le Souef informs me that the Mallee Hen will thrive 

 in confinement, but does not as a rule attempt to make a moimd. 



There is nothing hke personal experience, and as the Mallee Hen 

 is so replete with fascinating interest, even at the risk of being tedious, 

 I here give a brief account, the substance of which I read before the 

 Field NaturaHsts' Club of Victoria, 8th December, 1884, of a day's 

 outing enjoyed in virgin mallee scriib of the Wimmera district of 

 Victoria, when I was in quest of the Hen's eggs. 



On the 22nd October, 1884, accompanied by a friend, I set out from 

 Nhill for the Lawloit Range, distant about ten miles. We took our 

 departui-e immediately after breakfast. It was a most deUghtful 

 spring morning, clear and balmy. Men-ily did our pretty pair of 



