NYCTICOKAX. 33 



Sticks, and a little dry grass and seaweed lining. Both the birds settled on the rocks close by 

 while their nest was being robbed. They were silent, bnt another which I disturbed afterwards 

 gave a few harsh croaks. We found two other empty nests and other Herons, all the birds 

 having the dull slaty-bkie plumage, though from the shore I had seen a white one with my field 

 glass before we had reached the island, which is all rocks but the central parts consisting of a 

 thick growth of grass tussocks. The same day a nest with four eggs was taken by a boatman 

 off an isolated rock close to Rocky Cape Point." 



Mr. R. N. .\tkinson writes me as follows from Tasmania:^" My father first met with this 

 species on Church Rock, West Coast of Tasmania, on the 13th November, 1885, and added it 

 to our Tasmanian avi-fauna, taking at the time a set of four eggs from the nest of a white bird. 

 On the loth October of the following year he found another nest containing eggs, on a small 

 island on the north-west coast, and on the 2nd October, 1905, we saw a blue and a white bird 

 together on a small island in the Hunter Group, the eggs of which, three in number, were taken 

 for me later in the same month by Mr. J. F. Parker. A set of eggs was taken on an island 

 in the same group by Mr. W. J. T. Armstrong, on the 7th November, igog. In every instance 

 the nests were well concealed amongst the rocks." 



The eggs are usually two or three, occasionally four, and rarely five in number for a sitting, 

 elliptical or oval in form, of a uniform pale bluish-white colour, the shell being comparatively 

 close-grained and lustreless, some specimens having a few small limy excrescences, and which 

 are so often found on the eggs of many of our waders and sea-birds. A set of four taken by Dr. 

 Lonsdale Holden, on the i6th October, 1887, on Sister Island, off the north-west coast of 

 Tasmania, measures : — Length (A) 1-83 x 1-35 inches; (B) 1-83 x 1-36 inches; (C) 1-89 x 

 1-36 inches; (D) i-8S x 1-56 inches. A set of three taken by Mr. E. D. Atkinson on the same 

 island, on the 23rd November, 1890, measures : — Length (A) 1-83 x 1-38 inches; (B) 1-82 x 

 1-37 inches; (C) 1-83 x 1-36 inches. A set of three in the .-Vustralian Museum Collection, taken 

 on the 28th October, 1904, by Mr. A. McCulloch on Masthead Island, about forty miles east of 

 Port Curtis, on the Queensland coast, measures: — Length (A) 178 x 1-38 inches; {6)178 x 

 1-37 inches; (C) 175 x 1-35 inches. 



In North-western .\ustralia Mr. Tom Carter found nests with eggs or young in August, 

 September and October. Gilbert, who found at least fifty Reef Heron's nests on one small rock 

 at Port Essington, in the Northern Territory of South Australia, states that the breeding season 

 is in the month of August. On the islets lying off the coast of Eastern Queensland Mr. Frank 

 Hislop procured eggs and young in September, and fresh eggs again in March, while further 

 south Mr. T. P. .Vustin obtained nests with eggs or young in November. On Kangaroo Island, 

 lying close to South Australia, Mr. Edwin Ashby found a nest with five incubated eggs in 

 October, and on islets adjacent to the north-western coast of Tasmania Mr. E. D. Atkinson and 

 Dr. Lonsdale Holden found nests with fresh eggs during October and November. 



Nycticorax caledonicus. 



NANKEEN NIGHT-HERON. 

 Ardea ealpdonka, Gmel., Syst. Nat., Tom. I., p. 626 (1788). 



Xyctvjorax cakdonicns, Gould, Bds. Austr., fol. Vol. VI., pi. 63 (1848) ; id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., 

 Vol. II., p. 311 (18(35); Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. XXVI., p. 1.58 (1898); id., 

 Handl. Bds., Vol. 1., p. 198(1899). 



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