PITTA. 309 



notes: — "When driving about fifty miles inland from Point Cloates, North-western Australia, 

 on the 31st October, 1900, my attention was attracted by some small Bush Larks of a very rufous 

 colour, feeding in short dry grass by the road side. As I could not be sure of the species 

 I shot three or four, and at once knew it was a bird unrecorded from that locality. On reaching 

 home, and reading descriptions of Mirafra horsfieldi and M. sccunda, I did not feel satisfied that 

 my birds tallied with either of these two, but the skins lay in my cabinet until Mr. A. W. Milligan's 

 description of M. woodwardi appeared in 1901, and on sending him one of my skins he pronounced 

 the birds to be identical. On 5th February, 1902, I was in the same locality where I first 

 observed these birds, and after camping at night noted a small bird creeping persistently close 

 round the camp fire, and at last saw her settle on her nest, which was placed in a small hollow, 

 well below the ground level, snugly concealed in a tuft of green grass, and contained five fresh 

 eggs, numerously spotted with greenish-grey on a grey ground, some underlying spots appearing 

 of a faint purplish colour." 



A set of four eggs in the collection of Mr. H. L. White, of Belltrees, Scone, New South 

 Wales, and taken by Mr. F. L. Whitlock on the 13th October, 1908, on the De Grey Plains, 

 North-western Australia, are oval in form, the shell being close-grained and its surface smooth 

 and glossy. They are of a dull greyish-white ground colour, which is almost obscured by small 

 mottlings of wood brown uniformly and thickly distributed over the surface of the shell, except 

 on one specimen, where they are more sparingly disposed, and are of a greyish-brown hue : — 

 Length (A) 077 x 0-57 inches; (3)077 >< 0-58 inches ; (C) 077 x 0-57 inches ; (D) 076 x 

 o'5 inches. 



Family PITTID^. 

 Pitta strepitans. 



NOISY PITTA. 

 PitfM strepitans, Temin., PI. Col., Tom II., pi. 333 (1825) ; Gould, Eds. Austr., fol. Vol. IV., pi. 1 

 (1848); id., HandUk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., p. 430 (186.5); Sclater, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., 

 Vol. XIV., p. 428 (1888). 



Adult m.\lb — General colour above dark green, the feathers of the rump broadly tipped with 

 pale lustrous blue; upper tail-coverts and tail feathers black, the latter tipped tvith dark green like the 

 back; jvings green, the lesser wing-coverts pale lustrous blue ; primaries black, broivnish at the tips, 

 the third, fourth and fifth tvith a while band near the centre : lores, sides of the head, nape, hind neck, 

 cheeks and throat black; croiun of the head chestmit-brown, with a black streak down the centre; sides of 

 7ieck,Jore neck and breast light fawn colour; a large patch on the centre of the abdomen black; vent 

 and under tail-coverts scarlet: bill dark brown; legs and feet fleshy-brown: iris brown. Total length 

 in the flesh 9 inches, wing 5, tail 3'1, bill I'l, tarsus I'S. 



Adult female — Similar in plumage to the male. 



Distribution — Eastern Queensland, North-eastern New South Wales. 



/T^HE Noisy Pitta, or "Dragoon-bird," is an inhabitant of the coastal brushes of North- 

 A. eastern New South Wales, and the greater portion of similarly situated districts in 

 Eastern Queensland. So far as this species is represented in the Australian Museum collection, 

 Comboyne, Camden Haven is its southern limit in the former State, a specimen in the flesh 

 being received on the 4th July, 1906, procured there by Mr. J. L. Brown. Dr. E. P. Ramsay has 

 recorded, however, that a " single specimen was shot near Wollongong in 1883," forty eight 



