8o2 NESTS AND EGGS OF AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



secui'ed for our collection. The nest was a slight structiu'e, consisting 

 merely of a few short pieces of rushes and gi'ass, placed in and around a 

 depression at the foot of a clump of rushes gi'owing near the water's 

 edge of a lagoon," 



Writing to me from the same district (Clarence River), 1898, 

 Mr. S. W. Jackson states : " I foimd these birds breeding rather freely 

 this season on Duck Swamp, near South Grafton, on September 2nd. 



" The nests were floating stiiictures where the water was deep, but 

 in water only nine or ten inches in depth they were built up from the 

 ground. They were composed of aquatic weeds, small twigs, grass, &c., 

 and have the appearance in the water of those of the Black- throated 

 Grebe, only they are much more smartly built. The eggs, which in 

 every instance were four in number, are placed in the nests with the 

 sharp ends pointing inwards ; but in nests which were very wet the thick 

 end wa.s turned innennost, but for what cause I cannot tell. 



" I succeeded in procuring a number of eggs, the majority of which 

 were fresh. They show a. great variation in size, shape, and general 

 markings. The nests were built about ten or fifteen feet apart, and here 

 and there I would drop across three or four nests only a few feet from 

 each other. The birds make a most peculiar noise when being robbed 

 of their eggs, and keep jiunping off the gi'ovmd to the height of about 

 two feet, croaking and flapping their wings at the same time, thus giving 

 a person the idea that they are dancing on hot bricks. 



" In company with my brother, F. Jackson, and Messrs. L. Vesper 

 and V. McEnemy, I foimd another colony of Stilts breeding, on 

 September 11th. The nests were about , twenty-five in niunber, and 

 all contained young excepting foui- or five, with sets of eggs lieavily 

 sat on." 



To Mr. Jackson I am much indebted, not only for these notes, but 

 two handsome clutches of eggs which accompanied them, also a photo- 

 graph, wluch is reproduced herein. 



The eggs I desciibed in 1893 were from New Zealand (I am aware that 

 Seebohm treats the White-headed Stilt from that quarter as a sub- 

 species, while Gould and Sir Walter Buller regard it as identical with 

 the Australian bird), and were taken by Mr. J. C. iVlcLean on the 2nd 

 November, 1890, at Repongaere, Poverty Bay, from a nest placed on a 

 small islet or mound of earth, two feet or three feet square, rising from 

 a sheet of .shallow water. Tliere were two other nests on adjoining 

 islets — one containing foiu- incubated eggs, and tlie other one egg 

 (uncompleted clutch). Ten or a dozen birds were about the locality. 



The young in down is of various shades of fulvous-yellow, varied on 

 the uppei- part with brown, and with a series of square black dots down 

 the back, and a broad streak of the same colour on each thigli (Buller). 



Breeding season erratic. Sometimes in spring, as early as August 

 or September ; or in autumn as late as April or May. 



