10 



GYMNORUININ.E. 



Its normal food consists of insects of various kinds, principally beetles, crickets and grass- 

 hoppers, also small reptiles, birds and field mice. It frequently too, abstracts canaries and 

 other small birds kept in captivity, through the wires of their cages. Mr. A. M. N. Rose 

 shot and sent two Butcher-birds to the Trustees of the Australian Museum, that had succeeded 

 in killing a number of canaries in a cage hanging under the verandah of his house at Campbelltown. 

 At Blacktown a fine old male was uttering wild cries and making repeated swoops at a large 

 Varanus varius in the grass, but whether the bird was only amusing itself or attempting to 

 destroy the reptile, which eventually I despatched, and found it measured three feet six inches, 

 I cannot tell. Magpies also utter loud cries of alarm and make desperate dashes when they 

 discover a large snake, which would be impossible for them to kill. 



The nest is an open 

 structure, irregularly 

 formed externally of 

 thin sticks and long 

 twigs, with which are 

 sometimes inter- 

 mingled vine tendrils, 

 the inside is shallow 

 and cup shaped, and 

 lined with thin fibrous 

 rootlets; some nests 

 ha\e a thick foundation 

 of sticks and twigs, 

 others are so scantily 

 built that when 

 they contain eggs the 

 latter are \' i s i b 1 e 

 through the bottom of 

 the structure. The 

 nest figured, was taken 

 at Belmore, on the 2nd 

 August, i8q8, and 

 averages six inches 

 and a half in diameter 

 by three inches and 

 a quarter in depth. 

 It was built in a sapling 

 about twenty feet from the ground and contained four eggs. Little or no choice is shown in 

 the selection of a nesting site; the upright forks near the top of a gum sapling, tea-tree, or 

 turpentine-tree being more often resorted to in the neighbourhood of Sydney. Usually it is 

 built at a height of twelve to twenty feet from the ground, but sometimes it is placed within 

 hand's reach. 



The eggs are usually four, frequently only three, and occasionally five in number for a 

 sitting; they are oval in form, the shell being close-grained smooth and lustrous. In ground 

 colour they vary from a dull asparagus-green to pale ashy-blue, and from a clear olive to a light 

 brown, which is dotted, spotted, and blotched with dull reddish-brown, purplish-red or chestnut- 

 brown, the markings being confined almost entirely to the larger end, where they form, in some 

 instances, a well defined cap or zone; others have blotches of reddish-purple, or rich umber- 

 brown, with which are intermingled underlying spots of purplish-grey ; while some of a light 



NE.ST AND EGGS OF BUTCHER-BIP.U 



