414 Mr. E. P. Ramsay on Australian Oology. 



the water for about a hundred yards, rose up to the height of 

 ten or twenty feet, and then, skimmmg the surface of the water, 

 again settled with a considerable splash. Such are the only in- 

 stances in which I have seen them on the wing. Their chief 

 mode of progression in the water is by diving and swimming 

 with the head and part of the neck alone above the surface. I 

 have frequently watched them coming in to land from the middle 

 of the lake by long dives until near the edge, where they would 

 search for food, and, as I afterwards found, swallow the Uniones 

 whole without injuring the shell, though some of them were 

 fully an inch in length. Nyroca australis has also the same 

 habit of bolting live mussels in this most unceremonious man- 

 ner, and, like the Biziura, often swims with the body sunk in 

 the water. When suddenly flushed, the Musk-Ducks not un- 

 frequently dive with such force and quickness as to throw up 

 the water with their stiff-quilled tails to the height of three or 

 four feet, just as if a large stone had been thrown into the water 

 without causing any noise. 



The breeding-season begins in August, judging from the size 

 of young birds shot in the month of December, and continues to 

 the end of October and November. 



I believe that the musky smell which the male bird emits 

 during the summer months is confined to that sex, and in some 

 individuals is retained throughout the whole year. I have never, 

 even in the breeding-season, shot a female which had any smell 

 of musk about the skin. The nest is placed among the rushes, 

 reeds, and weeds on the banks of the small islands in the lakes 

 and lagoons. It is composed of aquatic plants, leaves of the 

 reeds, flags, and the like, and lined with a few feathers. The 

 eggs are usually two in number, of a pale olive colour, 3*2 in, 

 in length by 2*1 in. in breadth. The shell is minutely granu- 

 lated, rough, and very strong. 



2. Pitta strepitans, Temminck. (Plate VIII. fig. 2.) 



This species is found plentifully in the dense " brushes " of 



the Clarence and Uichmond Rivers; and that I believe is its 



nearest habitat to Sydney ; while to the north its range extends 



to the Albert River, and doubtless further on along the coast. 



