On the Birds of North Queensland. 617 



liiiidg ; they lay their eggs on the dry soil, of which the 

 mound is composed. The hole the birds make is small com- 

 pared with the size of the birds themselves. Two eggs are 

 laid, being pure white and well glossed. They measure : 

 A l-58xl'14, B r48xl-15 inch. These specimens were 

 found on the 4th of October, 1899. 



XL. — The Birds of North Qneenslond. — Part I. On two 

 Cot lections from Cooktown and the Neighbourhood of Cairns. 

 By Hekbert C. Robinson and VV. S. Lav^erock, M.A., 

 B.Sc, Assistant in the Derby Museum, Liverpool. With 

 Field -notes by E. Olive. 



About the middle of la*t year ]\Ir. E. Olive of Cooktown, 

 a port situated on the cast coast of Queensland, about 

 400 miles south of Cape York, the northernmost point of 

 Australia, sent to one of us a small collection of birds which, 

 though limited in extentjContained examples of several species 

 of considerable interest. At our suggestion he somewhat 

 later jjiocecded to Cairns, some 100 miles south oF Cooktown, 

 where he collected on the slopes of the Bellenden-Ker 

 mountains, which attain an altitude of 5500 feet, being the 

 highest in Qufcnsland. The collections there formed were 

 principally from the lower slopes of Mount Sapphiri (which 

 is probably the Mount Sophia of the Admiralty Chart j, 

 and from Mount Bellenden Ker itself, which was ascended 

 on three occa>ions. Here a camp was formtd for about 

 a week at an altitude of somewhat over 40^0 feet, whence 

 the mountiiin was worked to the summit. The collections 

 from higii elevations are unfortunately not so exhaustive 

 as might liave been hoped, for, owing to the unusual 

 Avetness of the season tlie mountain was enveloped in a 

 perpetual fog, which made noUecting a matter of extreme 

 difficulty, and in addition the majority of the birds were in 

 full moult. 



Nevertheless the material obtained does not appear to 

 bear out ]Mr. De Vis's statement (Rep. Scient. Exp. N.E. 



