20 CUCILID.E. 



garden for four days, and passed all its time between tliree Ljuni saplings not more than ten 

 yards apart. L>ay and night it uttered its somewhat mournful note. Another roosted in a 

 thickly foliaged wattle for a month or more, its note being frequently heard at all hours of the 

 night. In midwinter, at Randwick, I have also seen this species feeding on the ground in low 

 sandy scrub-covered heath lands. 



.\ favourite position for the Bronze Cuckoo to utter its note is near the end of a dead branch. 

 In fact to hear the call of this or any other species of Cuckoo fre(iuenting the neighbourhood of 

 Sydney during the spring and summer months, one in\ariably looks for the owner of it near the 

 end of a dead lateral, or upright branch of a tree. The note of the present species is a somewhat 

 plaintive one, resembling the sounds " pee — e, pee — e, pee — e," uttered from about si.x to sixteen 

 times in succession, and usually terminating with a " pi — en." 



Althou;;h the note oi Laniprococcyx plagosns is widely different, in a state of nature this 

 species resembles L. hasalis, unless one is quite close to the bird. The former, howe\er, may 

 be readily distinguished by its more brilliantly coloured upper parts, and by the more regular 

 and unbroken transverse barrings of the throat and breast, and by having only a few rufous 

 spots on the tail feathers. 



Mr. G. .\. Keartland writes me as follows from Melbdurne : — '• Laiiipiococcyx phji^oiUi \?, 

 generally the first of the CiuididiC to visit Southern Mctoria. It usually selects the nests of the 

 Acanthi:a in which to lay its eggs. There is one particular bush in the corner of a paddock at 

 Melton, in which I have found a nest of Acauthi:a ihrviorrlta'a every time I have visited the 

 district during the month of October for the last twenty years, and on each visit it contained an 

 egg of this species. I have several times disturbed these birds from the ground, and on 

 examining the spot discovered an olive coloured egg of this Cuckoo, quite warm and apparently 

 just laid." 



From South Australia Mr. Edwin Ashby sends me the following note :— " The Bronze 

 Cuckoo appears to be numerous in the Adelaide Hills, and I have seen several together at a 

 time in some of the deep gullies in the higher stringy-bark ranges. The eggs of this species are 

 common at Blackmore in the nest of the Superb Warbler. On the 21st August, 1906, I found 

 a nest of Mdiornis uovte-hoUandia" containing two eggs of that species, and five days later one of 

 the Honey-eater's eggs had been turned out, and in its place was an egg of the Bronze 

 Cuckoo." 



From Freshwater, near Manly, Mr. A. F. B. Hull sends me among other notes relative to 

 the eggs of the Bronze Cuckoo, the following : — " At Blacktown on the 14th October, igo6. I 

 found a nest of Clitlwnicola sagiiiaia overturned, and two eggs of that species and one of the Bronze 

 Cuckoo fC. plagi'siisj, all fresh and undamaiied, lying on the ground beside the nest. The 

 upper side of the Cuckoo's egg was partially bleached by exposure to sun and rain. A nest of 

 Acanthiza liucaia, built in the top of a white gum sapling at Freshwater, on the 23rd .August, 

 1908, contained two ef,'?;s ot that species and one of the lironze Cuckoo. They were talcen on 

 the 30th August, uithcjut additions and the incubation advanced." 



Mr. J. Gabriel, of .Abbotsford, near Melbourne, informs me that in one instance at Moorool- 

 bark-, \'ictoria, he found two eggs of the Bronze Cuckoo ( Laiiiprccoccyx plagosiis ) in the nest of, 

 and with two eggs of the Superb Warbler (Malnnis dintrnlis, = M. ryivuiis, Gould, nee ICIIis.) 



Mr. S. Robinson tells me he has in his collection the eggs of Laiuproioicyx pla;j;osits taken 

 with the following sets: — Pdivka goodcnovi, Piccilodryas cci'viniviiityii., Rliipidura alhisiapa, Chthonicola 

 iagittata, Acauihorliymduis icniiivosiris, and Ptilotis chrvsops. 



Mr. Malcolm Harrison, of Glenorchy, Tasmania, several times found the eggs of Lampiv- 

 cvccyx plagosus in the nests oi Acantliiza diciuifiwiisis, and his experience is that the Brown Tail is 



