MEROPS. 349 



Mr. Edwin Ashby, of Adelaide, writes me as follows : — " I met with Euiystomns pacificus in 

 the Blackall Ranges, about seventy miles north of Brisbane, Queensland. The bird used the bare 

 branches of the tallest gum trees as a sort of lookout, and from that point of vantage hawked 

 after insects. Specimens I have received from Port Keats, in the Northern Territory of South 

 Australia, are smaller than examples from Southern Queensland." 



It breeds in hollow spouts or holes in trees, depositing its eggs upon the rotten wood or dust 

 usually found in these cavities. Mr. Frank Hislop also records it breeding in a hole in a White 

 -Ants' nest. As a rule their nesting places are rather difficult to discover, chiefly on account of 

 the height they are from the ground, and the bird sitting very close. In the Upper Clarence 

 River district, where the birds are common, Mr. George Savidge used to find theni by firing a 

 bullet into the limb just below the supposed nesting site, and thus disturbing the birds when 

 sitting. At Ourimbah and Roseville I have seen the same nesting site resorted to season after 

 season. In the latter locality the timber is rapidly being cut down, and the ground utilized for 

 the erection of houses. I have never seen a nesting place of the Dollar-bird lower than forty 

 feet from the ground, and have frequently observed them at an altitude of eighty, and sometimes 

 over one hundred feet. 



The eggs are usually four, sometimes only three, rarely five in number for a sitting, rounded- 

 oval or oval in form, pure white, the shell being smooth, close-grained and as a rule lustrous. In 

 a set of four now before me, taken by Mr. H. G. Barnard at Duaringa, Dawson River, Queensland, 

 on the 22nd November, 1890, one egg of the set is entirely lustreless. They measure as follows :— 

 Length (A) 1-37 x 1-15 inches; (B) 1-39 x 1-12 inches; (C) 1-3 x i-ii inches; (D) 1-34 x 

 i"i2 inches. A set of four taken by Mr. George Saxidge, at Copmanhurst, Upper Clarence 

 River, New South Wales, in November 1901, measure :— Length (.\) 1-46 x i'i5 inches; 

 (B) i'4 X i-i6 inches; (C) i'44 x i'i6 inches; (D) i'35 x i'i4 inches. 



Young birds resemble the adults, but are much duller in colour, and are destitute of the 

 conspicuous deep blue patch on the throat, this part being brown, washed with pale greenish- 

 blue. Wing 6-9 inches. 



In New South Wales October and the three following months constitute the usual breeding 

 season, but on the 19th October, 1S92, M. Octave Le Bon brought for my inspection to the 

 Australian Museum two young birds, apparently about four weeks old, taken two days previously 

 from a nesting place in a hollow spout of a large dead gum-tree near Newcastle. 



Family MEROPID^. 

 Merops ornatus. 



BEE-EATER. 

 Merops ornatus, Lath., Ind. Orn., Suppl., p. .x.xxv., (1801) ; Gould, Eds. Austr., fol. Vol. II., pi. IG 



(1848); id., Haiidbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. I., p. 117 (186.5); Sharpe, Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. 



XVII., p. 74 (1892); id., Hand-1. Bds., V^ol. II., p. 74 (1900). 

 Adult male — Above golden-yreen ; lower hack and nimp eohalt-blue ,- upper tail-coverts blue,- 

 tail black, the two centre feathers washed with greenish-hhie, the remainder narrowly edged with 

 greenish-bhte, except the onfer feather on either side, which has tlte entire outer web green ; upper 

 wing-coverts like the buck : (pi ills orange-rufous washed with golden-green and tipped with black, the 

 inner secondaries blue ; hack of the liead and nape orange-rufous; lores, a line of feathers below the 

 eye and the ear-coverts black, bounded underneath by a streak of cobalt-blue ; chin and fore part of the 

 cheeks yellow, passing into deep orangc-riifoiis on the throat ; lonvr throat black; remainder of the 



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