KRYTHROIHIORCIIIS. 19'J 



As Watling executed these paintings in the newly formed settlement in Port Jackson 

 between 1788 and 1792, where Sydney now stands, it may be gathered from the preceding notes 

 that the type of the Kufous-bellied Buzzard was obtained in New South Wales, and also that 

 like many other birds described by Latham his name stands as the authority for a species he 

 had never seen. 



Gould was doubtful of the position of the present species when discussing it in his folio 

 edition of the " Birds of Australia," and remarks on the great length of the middle toe. Dr. Iv. 

 B. Sharpe, in the " Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London,"- points out that in the 

 " Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum "I he made a mistake in referring it to the genus 

 Urospiiias ot Kaup, and proposed the L;enus Erythivh'ioriliii for its reception. 



\\ ith the exception of .-htiir Lnuntns the present species is the rarest of all our .Australian 

 Accipitres. In the "Catalogue of Birds in the British Museum,": Dr. Sharpe enumerates 

 specimens from Port Essington, in the Northern Territory of South Australia, presented by 

 Captain Chambers, K.N. ; another received from Gould, which was procured at Bourke, Darling 

 River, New South Wales, and the type of Haliietus calcyi, described by Vigors and llorsfield in 

 the " Transactions of the Linnean Society of London," and who quoted the following note of 

 Caley"s:— "It frequents the upper parts of the Harbour (Port Jackson), particularly about the 

 flats, a few miles below Parramatta. The natives tell me it feeds upon dead iish, and tlie bones 

 which they leave. The Hats is a noted fishini; place for the natives ; the water there is shallow, 

 and at ebb tide a great portion of sand is left bare, which, with some marshy land adjoining, 

 forms a convenient res(jrt for several species of birds." The specimens in the Australian 

 Museum Collection were obtained at Cooktown and Cairns, North-eastern Queensland, at 

 the Dawson River, and Wide Bay in the same State, and a male procured in the Richmond 

 River District, New South Wales. 



For a knowledge of the nidification and eggs of this species I am indebted to the late Mr. 

 George Barnard and his son Mr. II. Greensill Barnard, of Coomooboolaroo, Duaringa, 

 Queensland. In 1883 the late .Mr. George Barnard forwarded the skins of this Buzzard to Dr. 

 E. P. Ramsay, of the .Australian Museum, for the purposes of identilication, and in September 

 of the following year sent him for description one of a set of two eggs taken that month from 

 a large nest formed of sticks, and lined with Eucalyptus leaves, and built at a hei.-iit of about 

 thirty feet from the ground, in a Moreton Bay Ash (Eucalyptus tcssclans). Subsequently Mr. 

 Barnard forwarded me the other egs of this set, and infornred me that his son had obtained 

 another nest on the 27th August, 1889, "built in a flat fork of a projecting limb of a Lemon- 

 scented Gum (Eucalyptus cilviodora), at least fifty feet from the ground, the eggs of which, two in 

 number, have a decided bluish tinge." In a later letter Mr. Barnard wrote me: — "A rather 

 singular occurrence took place about the Radiated Goshawk's nest ; when my sons found it 

 there were two eggs in it, and one of them shot the male ; about a month after, being up that 

 way again, one of them climbed the tree and found another egg in this nest, laid after the first 

 eggs were taken and the male bird shot." 



Mr. H. G. Barnard wrote me as follows from Coomooboolaroo, Duaringa, Queensland, 

 under date 2nd March, 1893 •— " I have only taken two nests of Astur nidiatus. The first I found 

 one day when out riding near a large swamp; my attention was attracted by hearing the loud 

 cries of a White Cockatoo (Cacatua ,L;dlcn'tuJ. I rode over to the place, and when I arrived there 

 the male A. vadiatus flew off the ground, leaving the body of a freshly killed Cockatoo. On 

 looking about I saw the nest in a large Moreton Bay Ash, and on hitting the tree the female 

 flew off. Not knowing the species I did not go up, but rode up next day with my brother 

 Charlie, when we shot both birds; I then went up the tree and obtained the eggs. The nest 



* Proc. Zooi. Soc, 1875, p.p. 337-9. t Cat Bds. Brit. .VIus., Vol. I., p. 159 (1S74J. 



; Cat. Bds. Brit. Mus., Vol. 1., p. 100 (1S74). 



