DUPETOK. \.i 



OF the two species of Manf^rove Bittern inhabiting AustraHa, the Yellow-necked is the 

 slightly larger of the two, and its range also on the continent is more extended. 

 Mr. George Masters, while collecting on behalf of the 'i'rustees, obtained specimens at 

 King George Sound, Western Australia, and at Wide Bay, Queensland, on the opposite 

 side of the continent. The late Mr. T. H. Bowyer-Bower procured examples at Derby, 

 North-western Australia, and Gould also received specimens from Port Essington, in the 

 Northern Territory of South Australia. Dr. E. P. Ramsay has recorded it from various parts 

 of the coastal districts of Eastern Queensland, and has described its eggs from Duaringa, on the 

 Dawson River, from examples forwarded to him, with a skin of the parent bird, by the late Mr. 

 George Barnard, of Coomooboolaroo. In New South Wales it occurs throughout all the coastal 

 districts of the State, but is much more abundantly distributed throughout the swamps and 

 mangrove flats of the northern rivers than elsewhere, and where it has been found breeding on 

 many occasions by Mr. 1 1. R. El very and Mr. George Savidge. Mr. R. Grant, collecting on behalf 

 of the Trustees of the Australian Museum, obtained specimens on the Bellinger River, and Dr. 

 C. .\. Edwards presented a specimen in June, 1905, which he had procured at Wyong, Near 

 Sydney it is much rarer than tlie Little Mangrove Bittern, although examples are occasionally 

 obtained; the late Mr. H. Newcombe presented specimens he had procured at Randwick, 

 and I also saw a set of its eggs taken from a nest in a tree overhanging George River, near 

 Liverpool, in September, 1897. It occurs somewhat sparingly throughout the Illawarra District, 

 to the southern borders of the State. Mangrove flats, the timbered margins of rivers and creeks, 

 and tree-lined lakes, swamps, and pools are its favourite haunts, situations that are favourable 

 for it to procure small fish and insects, on which it subsists, the food varying according to the 

 situations it frequents. Stomachs of specimens procured in the Lachlan Swamp, Botany, 

 contained the remains of small fish ; of another obtained at Wyong the remains only of a(]uatic 

 insects, and the stomach was thickly enveloped in fat. 



From Bimbi, Duaringa, Queensland, Mr. H. G. Barnard sent me the following notes: — 

 " Many years ago I found a nest of the Yellow-necked Mangrove Bittern (Diipctov goiildi) in a 

 Swamp Gum ; the nest, a small Hat structure, was built on a horizontal limb that projected over 

 a waterhole, the height from the water being about fifty feet. As there was a large hornet's 

 nest on the underside of the limb, and between the nest and the main stem, I got up at daylight 

 one morning and climbed the tree while the hornets were quiet ; as the eggs were some distance 

 beyond the reach of my hand, I took them with the aid of a table spoon tied t<_) the end of along 

 stick, one egg at a time was spooned from the nest and drawn in ; the eggs, five in number, 

 being thus secured, I descended the tree without disturbing the hornets, who, when warmed 

 with the sun, would have made it impossible to have taken the eggs. Another nest containing 

 five eggs was taken the following season from a tree overhanging a water hole about two miles 

 from where the first nest was obtained, probably of the same pair of birds. The eggs were 

 white. Of late years these Bitterns have completely left this district." 



Mr. Henry R. Elvery sends me the following notes from Alstonville, Richmond River, 

 New South Wales : — " I have had frequent opportunities of observing Butovoidcs flavicoUis in 

 the big scrub district of the Richmond River, and have found a number of nests. The nesting 

 site is invariably in the vicinity of water, the nests and eggs being usually placed on a horizontal 

 limb overhanging a running stream. The number of eggs most frequently contained in a clutch 

 is three, although I have frequently taken four eggs from a nest of this species. On the 

 7th December, 1S98, took a set of live eggs from a nest, and on a later date took a second set 

 of five from the same locality, which I feel convinced were laid by the same bird. An interesting 

 circumstance connected with this species is worth relating. Early in the season 1907 a nest 

 was built in an Acacia growing on the bank of a creek, by Tawny-shouldered Podargus 

 (P. strigoides) ; later on took a set of two eggs from the same nest laid by a Wonga Pigeon, 



