48 



CICOMIIJ*. 



/"I^HE IMack-necked Storl;, or " jabiru," at one time thou,L;lit to be distinct from the species 

 J- inhabitin.i; the Indian I'eninsula, is widely distributed o\er the north-western, northern 

 and eastern portions of Australia, its range extending in addition to New Guinea and the south- 

 eastern portions of Asia. It is found frequenting the estuaries of rivers as well as inland marshes 

 and lagoons. The late Mr. T. H, Bowyer-lJower obtained specimens at Cambridge Gulf, 

 North-western Australia, in i8.S6. It was noted in the Northern Territory of South .Australia, 

 at Port Essington, by Gilbert and Macgillivray, and in other localities it has been procured by 

 various collectors, and of recent years by Mr. J. T. Tunney at the Mary lvi\er and South 



Alligator, as recorded by Dr. Ernst Hartert 

 in " Novitates Zoologica' " in 1905. I have 

 also seen a set of its eggs taken near the 

 I 'aly Kiver, and Mr. Edwin Ashby informed 

 me he also possessed its eggs, talcen at 

 I'ort Keats. Many writers ha\e noted it 

 from the coastal districts of Oueensland and 

 Eastern New South Wales, the first recorded 

 Australian eggs of this species being des- 

 cribed by Messrs. \V. T. White and II. 

 Tryon in 1S.S6, in a joint paper contributed 

 to the Royal Society of Queensland, from 

 specimens obtained at Ingham, near the 

 mouth of the Herbert Kiver, in the former 

 State. The late Mr. George Barnard also 

 found its huge nest near Rockhampton, but 

 the repeated attacks of a pair of Wedge- 

 tailed Eagles eventually caused the birds to 

 desert it. In the following year the late 

 Mr. John Leadbeater received its eggs, 

 taken on the Clarence River in 1887, which 

 I described in the same year in the " Pro- 

 ceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales." Of late years Mr. H. G. Elvery has 

 found it breeding in Tuckiana Swamp, on the Richmond River, and further south several nests 

 and sets of eggs have been taken in the neighbourhood of West Kempsey, on the Macleay 

 River, one set being secured through the exertions of Mr. A. P. Kemp, then resident in the 

 district, for the Trustees of the Australian Museum. 



It is almost exclusively an inhabitant of the coastal districts, and is not usually found far 

 inland, frequenting mangrove fiats and margins of swamps, although Messrs. Cox and Hamilton 

 record it as a rare visitant in the Mudgee District, New South Wales. It is said to be at all 

 times difficult to procure, but that some birds fall victims to the fowler's gun is evinced by 

 the fact of it being e.xhibited for sale in the poulterer's shops in Sydney from time to time. 

 Specimens thus obtained for this museum, I have learned, were mostly procured on the northern 

 rivers of the State, principally from the Clarence River. 



According to Mr. Allan Hume, in his work on the " Nests and I'^ggs of Indian Birds," the 

 Black-necked Stork possesses many of the attributes of the Australian Crane or " Native 

 Companion " (Gnis ansti'alasianus), as may be gathered from the following notes in reference to 

 this species : — " These birds have a most remarkable method of paying delicate attentions to 

 one another, or it may be merely of dancing. A pair will gravely stalk up to each other, and 

 when about a yard or two feet apart, will stand face to face, extend their long black and white 

 wings, and while they flutter these very rapidly, so that the points of the wings of one flap 



i;la('k-n'E('kkd stork. 



