EL'ROSTOPUS. 333 



colour, sparingly spotted and blotched with rounded black markings, and underlying ones of 

 bluish-grey, predominating usually towards one end ; others have the markings in clusters, or 

 confined to one side of the shell ; one now before me has minute dots, rounded oval, and larger 

 heart-shaped spots of black, intermingled with underlying markings of slaty-black, and a line 

 of spots which bears a close resemblance to the Belt of Orion. Length i'62 x 1-14 inches. 

 A unusually marked specimen, taken by Mr. Charles French, the Victorian Government 

 Entomologist, in Gippsland, on the 20th January, 1895, has nine large irregular-shaped umber- 

 brown smeary blotches, and a few spots on a cream ground colour. Length i'57 x i'i2 inches. 

 An egg taken at Manly has the ground colour of a faint yellowish-green, approaching in 

 tint the egg of Eurostopus argus. 



This species is usually a late breeder, eggs being found generally in November, December 

 and January, but Mr. G. Savidge sends me a note of taking an egg at Copmanhurst, New South 

 Wales on the 28th September, 1896, from which he flushed the bird, as his earliest record of the 

 laying of this species. 



Eurostopus argus. 



SPOTTED NIGHTJAR. 

 Eurostopodus guttatus, (nee Vig. and Horsf.), Gould, ]>Js. Austr., fol. Vol. II., pi. 8 (1848); id., 

 Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. L, p. 98 (1865). 



Eurostopus argils, Hartert, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. XVI., p. 608 (1892). 



Adult male — Resembles (lie adidt nude 0/ Eurcstopus albigularis, but is distinguished by its 

 smaller size and more rusty-rufous and lighter grey colour of the upper parts; the latter colour is very 

 pronounced on the central tail-feathers, the remainder being darker and more thickly barred with grey 

 and rufous ; the first primary with a round white spot on the inner portion of the inner web, the 

 second, third and fourth primaries with a lorger tvhite spot on both webs; on the tmder parts the 

 white patches of feathers on each side of the throat meet in the ce^itre and form an inverted V-shaped 

 marking, the feathers on the fore neck are tipped ivith rufous, and the vent and under tail-coverts are 

 iinifirui rusty-rufous; bill dark brown; "legs and feet reddish-brotvn ; iris rich dark broimi" 

 (Bennett j. Total length 11;5 inches, wing 8'8, tail 6'3, ex})osed portion of bill 0'25, tarsus 0'7. 



Adult female — Similar in plumage to the male. 



Distribution — North-western Australia, Northern Territory of South Australia, Queensland, 

 New South Wales, \'ictoria. South Australia, Central Australia, Western Australia, Aru Islan'ds. 



^l^HE Spotted Nightjar, in addition to its smaller size and more rusty-rufous markings of 

 -L the upper parts, may be easily distinguished from the preceding species by the larger 

 white spots on the primaries, and by the complete inverted V-shaped white marking on the 

 throat. I have examined specimens from all the Australian States, e.xcept Victoria and South 

 Australia, and there are examples in the Australian Museum collection obtained by Mr. George 

 Masters at Port Denison, Queensland, in June 1864; also, at King George's Sound, Western 

 Australia, in April, 1869. The late Mr. T. H. Bowyer-Bower obtained specimens at Derby, 

 North-western Australia, to which Dr. E. P. Ramsay referred as follows in the " Proceedings of 

 the Linnean Society of New South Wales " •' : — " The specimens here under consideration belong 

 to some of the numerous varieties of Eurostopodus guttatus, Vigors and Horsfield. The predominant 

 colouring of the upper surface, especially on the wings and their coverts, is of a rich rufous ; the 

 under surface also is highly coloured with the same tint ; front and centre of the head richly 

 mottled with rufous and black ; under tail-coverts light rufous, the tail below with from nineteen 

 to twenty alternate bars of black and rufous, the upper surface of the tail-feathers freckled and 



• Proc. Linn. See. N. S. Wales, Vol I., 2nd ser., p. 1097 (1887). 



