20 AKIlKID.S. 



obtained in the neii,'hbourhood of Sydney only on one occasion, the late Mr. Henry Newcombe 

 shooting one of these birds on the 26th Marcli, 1902, at Long Bay, which he presented to the 

 Trustees. It was in the autumn and winter plumage, being pure white, but devoid of the 

 lengthened hair-Hke plumes on the back and lower portion of the fore-neck. This specimen 

 had the bill yellow, brownish on the apical half, and its stomach contained the remains of small 

 fish. 



Through Mr. Charles French, Junior, Assistant Government Entomologist of N'ictoria, I 

 received a set of eggs for examination, and also the accompanying notes from Mr. J. A. Ross, 

 under date 22nd July, igoy, relative to the taking of them; — -"On the gth November, 1906, 

 Mr. A. H. E. Mattingley and I set out with a guide down the Edwards River, near Mathoura, 

 New South Wales, in a small flat-bottomed boat, which was loaded to its utmost carrying 

 capacity. After a long weary journey we pitched our tent on a small mound of earth, which so 

 far as our investigations went was the only ground showing above water for miles. We set 

 out to e.xplore the vast swamps, which apparently extend for miles on both sides of the Edmunds 

 River at this time of the year. During the afternoon we were fortunate enough to come across 

 a place where a good many Plumed Egrets (MesopJwyx pliunifi-mj were nesting, and with the 

 aid of nearly seventy feet of rope ladder we were able to get into the trees and reach the nests 

 themselves. We secured a few clutches of eggs, and some photographs were with great difficulty 

 taken. In the neighbourhood many Night Herons f'iV)'("/:V(>n?.v fiT/ci/cH/('//s^, a few White Egrets 

 (Hcrodias tijiwiicitsisj and several White-necked Herons (Notapheyx paii/ica J were nesting, and we 

 secured a few eggs of the Night Heron. All the nests of the White Egrets and the White- 

 necked Herons were absolutely beyond reach, and so were most of those of the two other species 

 named. The nest of the I'lumed Egret closely resembles in construction that of the Night 

 Heron and White-fronted Heron, but is somewhat smaller and shallower than either of them. 

 The nests we were able to reach contained from two to four eggs, and I think three or four is 

 the clutch, for we found signs of incubation in sets of both those numbers, but the sets of two 

 were all fresh, and some nests contained young birds. None of the nests were less than seventy 

 feet from the water, and I am of opinion that many nests were placed upwards of two hundred 

 and fity feet high. I do not think that in this locality there were more than six pairs of White- 

 necked Herons, but there were about twice that number of pairs of White Egrets, and about 

 fifty or sixty pairs of Plumed Egrets. The Night Herons were very numerous, and we did 

 not explore the whole of the area occupied by thetii. It took us practically the whole of the 

 third day ('the nth November) to make our way back against the current and through numerous 

 snags to civilization." 



Although Gould had described this species so far back as 1847, and Mr. S. Robinson had 

 taken a dozen or more nests and sets of its eggs in 1893, •' ^^'^^ not until the September meeting 

 in 1907, of the Linnean Society of New South Wales, that the eggs of the Plumed Egret were 

 exhibited and made known, the description of them first appearing in the "Abstract of Proceed- 

 ings " published on the 27th September, 1907. 



Mr. S. Robinson informed me he found a dozen or more pairs of the Plumed Egret 

 breeding on Buckiinguy Station, New South Wales, on the 8th November, 1S93. The nests 

 were nearly fiat, and scantily formed structures of thin sticks and twigs, in some instances with 

 leaves attached, and were so small that they were almost covered by the birds when sitting. 

 They were built in Gum or " Humerbung " (Acm-ia, sp.^l saplings, standing in water where the 

 Macquarie River had overflowed its banks, and varied in height from seven to twenty feet from 

 the surface of the water, most of them being higher than twelve feet, and in some saplings were 

 two nests. Each nest contained four eggs, some fresh, others well advanced in incubation. 



The eggs are usually four in number for a sitting, almost true ellipses in form, the shell 

 being close-grained, with fine pittings, others smooth and lustreless. They are of a uniform 



