lyy FALCOSID.E. 



flies and PImsiiui, sp. On the labels of a male and female sent by Mr. E. A. C. Olive from 

 Cooktown are marked " food, cockroaches, beetles, snakes." When driven by hun<:;er, however, 

 it does not hesitate to attack birds, and will even descend into a poultry-yard to secure its prey, 

 one being killed at Ilornsby, twenty-one miles from Sydney, having a chicken in its claws. 

 Many birds are shot, owing to their conspicuous and striking pure white plumage rendering 

 them an object of attraction, especially when placed with a background of deep umbrageous 

 folia;^e. 



Of a series of twenty specimens now before me three males, respectively from Cairns, 

 Queensland, and the Tweed and Richmond Rivers, New South Wales, have the tail-feathers 

 and the ends of some of the longer i]uills much worn and abraded, particularly in one specimen, 

 of which little more remains than the shafts of the central pair of tail-feathers near their ends; 

 otherwise all are in immaculate white pluina,L;e. A mounted bird obtained in New South 

 Wales by Mr. E. S. Scarvell, has its general white plumage washed in a few places on 

 the hind-neck, upper back and scapulars with brown ; on the upper breast some of the 

 feathers have darker brown central streaks, or irregular barrings, while the under surface 

 of the tail-feathers are crossed with eight or more indistinct pale brown bars. It is the only 

 specimen I ha\e seen like it, and is probably tlie result of an Astiir ilann paired witii an Astiir 

 mnhT-hollaiuUie, as referred to by Mr. Savidge in his notes. 



From Copmanhurst, in the Upper Clarence District, New South Wales, Mr. George Savidge 

 sends me the following notes: -"The White Cioshawk fJs/;/;- noiuc-lioUaiidicc), is found sparingly 

 dispersed in the reaches of the L'pper Clarence River, but is nowhere common. The nesting 

 site is some secluded scrubby gully or on the fringe of the larger scrubs; it usually selects 

 the outspreading branches of a Box or Gum-tree for its nest, andean usually be plainly seen 

 hoxerhi.i; abo\e the thick scrubliy under.Ljrowth beneath. A pair built at the junction of Table 

 Creek with the Clarence River, about four miles above Newbold Station Homestead, for many 

 seasons, and I took the eggs from this pair of birds upon several occasions. The photograph 

 of the nest I sent you belonged to the latter. It was a beautiful structure, the dead twigs and 

 branches of which the nest was formed was covered witli lichen and moss. We carried it 

 on our backs to Newbold Station, and from there home in our sulky, a difficult task for such 

 a structure. The eggs are two in number for a sitting. I have never found more, and like those 

 of Astiir ciiicrciii they are devoid of any markings ; when fresh laid they are greenish-white, but 

 soon become dirty brownish when nest stained. The eggs of Astiiv n'liemis and A. nova'-hoUandicB 

 are alike, the latter being a trifle smaller, but not always. Upon one occasion at Cangai we 

 found a white bird and a grey backed one paired together ; I ha\e their eggs in my cabinet. 

 All the young ones examined by nie at Cangai, Camel-back, and Newbold Station in November, 

 1S97, were pure white. From each of these same nests, after being relined, a pair of eggs were 

 taken the following season." 



Mr. Savidge sent me the following note under date nth October, iSijS: — ".Since last 

 writing you I have taken the eggs of Astiw iwva-hoUt}ndi<e. I found the nest last year in November 

 containing one young bird ; the nest is a very large structure, and was placed in a scrub Box- 

 tree, in a belt of scrub, the bird llew off before we got near the nest: it contained two eggs 

 very slightly incubated." 



The late Mr. K. II. Bennett, writing me from Vandembah Station on the 30th October, 

 iSgo, remarked : — " In the dense scrubs which clothed the banks of Morwell River, in Gippsland, 

 Victoria, in my boyhood's days, White Goshawks could be frequently met with, and on many 

 occasions when Lyre-bird hunting in those scrubs I have come across a pair of white birds, and 

 shot them both. On one occasion I found a nest placed in the topmost branches of a tall Gum 

 tree. 1 saw this nest several times during its occupation, and I always saw either one or two 

 white birds there." 



