Mr. E. P. Ramsay on Australian Oology. 419 



equally dispersed over the surface. In a valuable collection, for 

 which I am indebted to my brother, Mr. J. Ramsay, of Nanama, 

 there are seven Bustard's eggs; one particularly fine one 

 measures 3"3 by 2'1 in.; it is of a light olive-green sparingly 

 marked with reddish olive-brown. 



The figure represents the most usual form of eggs found on 

 the Lachlan River, while all those obtained by my brother are 

 much more elongated. The smallest Bustard's e^^ in our col- 

 lection measures 2"3 by 1'6 in., and is of an olive-brown, thickly 

 spotted and dashed with dark olive-brown. I have seen small 

 eggs of the same colour with very few and faint longitudinal 

 markings, extending nearly the whole length of the egg : these I 

 take to be the eggs of the younger birds. So far as I am aware, 

 the Australian Bustard has but one brood in the season. 



5. LoBiVANELLUs LOBATUS (Latham). (PL IX. fig. 2.) 



This species has long since become scarce, if not quite extir- 

 pated, in the neighbourhood of Sydney, although plentiful some 

 fifty miles inland. It shows a decided preference for the marshy 

 parts of the country, on the borders of lakes, swamps, and 

 lagoons, and the grassy margins of rivers. On the edge of Lakes 

 Bathurst and George, and Hexham Swamps, they are particu- 

 larly numerous. 



During the daytime they are mostly found in flocks of from 

 five to fifty in number, pei-haps crowded together on the edges 

 of a lagoon, basking in the sun, or on remarkably hot days under 

 the shade of some tree. Night is the Plovers' time for feeding j 

 they then become remarkably noisy, and their loud creaking 

 choruses, sometimes carried on by two or three individuals, are 

 more often heard. A sudden stop puts an end to the performance, 

 when all is again quiet, and nothing heard save a melancholy 

 call-note as they follow one another in twos and threes to some 

 distant part of the fields. They are seldom heard in the day-' 

 time, except when disturbed. 



The Spur-winged Plover breeds during September and the 

 two following months, in some localities a month earlier or later. 

 The eggs, which are four in number, are placed with the thin 

 ends inwards, and laid upon the ground by the side of some tut't 



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