ilALI.ETUS. 



221 



irregularly formed. The nest here figured, built in a large Eucalyptus tree, which I 

 photographed, contained two heavily incubated eggs, and was about sixty feet from the 



ground, .\nother nest ex- 

 amined on the same day 

 was in almost a similar 

 position, and one of the 

 birds was flying overhead. 

 The latter structure aver- 

 aged about five feet in 

 width by three feet in depth, 

 and the climbet easily stood 

 up in it. Since examining 

 it a week before, it had 

 been newly lined with 

 Eucalyptus lea\es. .As a 

 rule the nests when built 

 in trees are well placed out 

 of harm's way, sometimes 

 over one hundred feet from 

 the ground, and frequently 

 in dead and rotten trees, 

 rendering them more inac- 

 cessible; occasionally they 

 are built low down in trees 

 twelve to twenty feet from 

 the ground. The nests are 

 added to every season, and 

 some of them are immense 

 structures. 



The eggs are usually two, 

 very rarely three in number 

 for a sitting, \arying from 

 rounded ellipse to oval or 

 elongate oval in form, dull 

 white, the shell being 

 coarse-grained and lustre- 

 less as a rule, but one set 

 now before me has the 

 surface slightly glossy ; 

 they are variable in size, 

 e\-en in the same set, and 

 some specimens are stained 

 or smeared in places with 

 light brown or yellowish- 

 brown. Two eggs taken 

 by the late Mr. Ralph Har- 

 graves from different nests 

 at Wattamclla, New South Wales, in August, 1870, and August, 1875, measure respectively. — 

 Length (A) 272 x 2-06 inches; (B) 2-98 x 2-i6 inches. A set of two taken by Mr. \V. White, 



86 



CLIMHIVG TO A NEST OF THE WHTrR-BRLI-IED SEA-EAGLE. 



