PLorus. 339 



ej;gs for a sitting', and tliat Mr. Elsey got as many as forty to fifty eggs in a single tree, and 

 many line meals were made by him off these eggs. I ha\e seen eggs that were taken on the 

 Daly River in June. 



Mr. George Sa\idge found this species breeding on the Upper Clarence River, New South 

 Wales in November, and I saw a number of sets of eggs that were taken on Yanga Lake, in 

 the south-western portion of the State, in the same month. In Mctoria Mr. J. L. Ayres 

 found these birds breeding in Hooded country in April, their breeding at this time in South- 

 eastern Australia being doubtless influenced by the falls of rain, for usually the breeding season 

 in this part of the continent is more regular during the latter (]uarter, or very early months of 

 the year. 



Family SULID^. 

 Sula serrator. 



G AN NET. 



tSula aiiKfnUis, Gould (?*/<.: Steph.), Proc. Zool. Soc, lyfU, p. 177 ; id., Bds. Austr., fol. Vol. VII., 

 pi. 76(1818); id., Handbk. Bds. Austr., Vol. II., p. 504 (1865). 



Sala serrator. Gray, Voy. Erebus and Terror, Birds, p. 19 (1845); Ogilvie-Grant, Cat. Bds. Brit. 

 Mus., Vol. XXVI., p. 428 (1898) ; Sharpe, Hand-1. Bds, Vol. I., p. ■2;3G (1899). 



Adult m.\lk. — Gunera/ colour above and bidow pun' ivhite ; quills broivuisli-bl ack, their shafts 

 u-/ii(e at tlie base, brown on the centre, black at the tips : four ceutral tail-feathers brownislt-black fvith 

 'irlnte bases, their shafts white except iiear t/ie tip, the liU<ral ones and their shafts pure tvliite ; croimi 

 aud sides of the head and hind-neck ochraceous-bujf; bill u>hitish-horn colour, cuttimj edge dull blue ; 

 skin at base of bill dark lead colour ; skin around the eije larender-blue : iris pale yellow ; tarsi and 

 feet bron^H, the front of them and of the toes pale yelloiinsh-yreen ; nails dull blnisli-ivJtite. Total lenyth 

 in tliejlesli JJf inches, tving IS'O, tail S\j, bill.J'H, tarsus J-o. 



Adult female. — .Similar in pi u) nay e to the 7nale. 



Distribution. — Coasts of Queensland, New South Wales, V'ictoria, South Australia, Western 

 Australia, Islands of Bass Strait, Tasmania and adjacent islands. 



^"I^HE range of the common Gannet or "Booby" of the eastern and southern coasts of 

 J- Australia, extends as far north in Queensland, according to Dr. E. P. Ramsay, as 

 Cardwell. I have noted it all along the coast of New South Wales, and on the Tasman Sea, 

 Eastern Bass Strait and Tasmanian waters during the forty-eight hours voyage from Sydney to 

 Hobart. Dr. W. Macgillivray found it breeding with other species on Lawrence Rocks, 

 about five miles from Portland, in Southern X'ictoria, its range extending to South and 

 Western Australian waters, and Mr. Tom Carter informs me that at Point Cloates, North- 

 western .\ustralia, a specimen in a fresh condition was found dead on the beach on the 30th 

 September, igoi. Undoubtedly one of the largest breeding colonies of these birds is on Cat 

 Island, in the Furneaux Group, Bass Strait, near the Tasmanian coast. 



It is not known to breed on any of the islands lying off the New South Wales coast, but it 

 is a species that may be seen, although not in great numbers, at all seasons of the year, including 

 the late spring and summer months, a period when the breeding season is at its full height on 

 the islands off the Tasmanian coast. Occasionally it may be seen just inside Sydney Heads, 

 and there are specimens in the Australian Museum Collection captured at Rose Bay and 



