HIMANTOPUS. 293 



Mr. Tom Carter wrote as follows from Broome Hill, South-western Australia : — " Himantopits 

 Uucocephalus was to be seen in numbers in North-western Australia, at pools and swamps, in wet 

 seasons. These birds apparently prefer to breed on islands in the flooded salt marshes, as I 

 observed them in such a situation on the vast marsh between the Gascoyne and Minilya 

 Rivers. In the wet year of igoo scores were breeding on a flooded salt marsh south of 

 Point Cloates, from the ist May to the 12th September. Many nests were on the ground of 

 the small islands, and others built in the tops of the samphire bushes standing out of the water; 

 these nests were compactly built. The clutches of four varied considerably, the ground colour of 

 some being deep golden yellow, and of others quite green. The birds had an uneasy time, as 

 Aborigines and an occasional teamster robbed the nests to get the eggs to eat, and I myself found 

 them of excellent flavour. Early in September many young were out. The White-headed Stilts 

 showed great anxiety about their eggs and young, flying around with their plaintive cries, or 

 feigning lameness on the ground, and fluttering their wings." 



The eggs are usually four, rarely five, in number for a sitting, oval in form, the shell being 

 comparatively close-grained, dull and lustreless as a rule, but sometimes slightly lustrous. 

 They vary in ground colour from a faint yellowish-olive to a brown, which is sometimes tinged 

 with green or greenish-olive, over which is distributed freckles, irregular-shaped spots, blotches 

 and ill-shapen figures of black or brownish-black, with which are sometimes intermingled a few 

 spots or blotches of different shades of umber, and underlying markings of dull inky-grey. On 

 some specimens the markings are fairly evenly distributed over the shell, on others they 

 predominate and are larger on the thicker end, on many they are confluent or overlie one another, 

 forming large patches on different parts of the shell. A set of four in the .Australian Museum 

 Collection, taken by the late Mr. K. H. Bennett on the 15th September, 1889, on Yandembah 

 Station, twenty-five miles from Booligal, New South Wales, measures: — Length (.'\) 175 x 1-22 

 inches; (6)1-65 ^ i*i8 inches; (C) 174 x 1-22 inches; (D) i-8i x 1-22 inches. A set of four 

 taken by Mr. Clarence Savidge, on the 4th August, iSgg, at Coldstream Creek, near Ulmarra, 

 Clarence River, measures:— Length (A) 1-83 x 1-23 inches; (B) i-8 x 1-22 inches; (C) 173 x 

 1-26 inches; (D) 176 x 1-23 inches. A set of four taken by Mr. S. Robinson on Burrenbilla 

 Station, near Cunnamulla, Queensland, on the nth October, 190S, measures: — Length (A) 177 

 X I-2I inches; (6)1-84 x I'lS inches; (C) 1-7 x 1-17 inches; (0)1-72 x 1-2 inches. 



Immature birds resemble the adults, but are duller in plumage, having the hinder portion 

 of the crown of the head smoky-grey ; upper portion of hind-neck blackish-brown, some of the 

 feathers edged or tipped with white; upper parts of the back and innermost secondaries dark 

 brown ; rest of the quills and upper wing-coverts dull black. Wing 8-5 inches. 



August and the four following months constitute the normal breeding season in Eastern 

 Australia, but like other species of the Limicohr it may be found breeding after heavy rains 

 at the end of summer or in the autumn. 



Of the Banded Stilt (Cladovhynchus pedonilis) I regret to state I have not seen a properly 

 authenticated set of its eggs, although, doubtless, they resemble in general characters those of 

 the preceding species. The eggs described by Dr. E. P. Ramsay from Mr. H. R. Whittell's 

 collection are those of Himantopits kucoccphdus:- From Mr. L. Clark, of Hawthorn, V'ictoria, 

 in 1880, I received an egg, purporting to be that of the Banded Stilt, taken by him the previous 

 season near Booligal, on the Lachlan River, New South Wales, but subsequently he wrote and 

 informed me he had incorrectly identified the bird, and the egg belonged to the White- 



• Proc. Linn. Soc. N. S. Wales, Vol. VII., p. 57 (1883). 

 74 



