THE JACKSONIAN OOLOGICAL COLLECTION, 
The particulars so far published concerning the Africhia have been very fragmentary, and I am 
pleased to be able in these pages to give some original notes and descriptions of the bird and its 
habits. While camped at Booyong scrubs in 1899, I had many visits from my friend, Isaac J. Foster, 
who was working in an adjoining scrub, and showed him the Aférichia’s nest which I found there, and 
gave him all information concerning this interesting species, ve how, when and where they built, etc., 
in order that it might later on be of assistance to him in finding the nest and eggs, or a female bird. 
However, two years later (November 5th, 1901) he was successful in finding a nest near Booyong, 
and in the very locality I had advised him to watch, but unfortunately it contained two young birds, 
and was built near the ground in a clump of flat ribbon-like grass or sedge (Gahnia sp.), and a mass of 
debris among dead leaves at the head of a fallen tree. The nest had the same fapier-maché or 
cardboard-like lining, as was the case with the two found by myself and already described here. In 
order to try and capture the female he raked a portion of the ground clear, about a foot from the front 
of the nest, and then took one of the young birds from it, and its cries soon brought the female along, 
and he caught her with his hand as she excitedly hopped about near her nest, the young bird was 
then placed back into the nest. The next move was to cage the specimen, and being camped in the 
scrub and having no such facilities, he placed her between two very large empty halves of the canoe- 
shaped pods of the Moreton Bay 
Chestnut or Bean-ball Tree (Cas- 
tanospermum australe), and tied 
them together, after making a 
hole at each end as a means of 
admitting sufficient air. He kept 
the bird caged in this novel way 
for a few days, in hopes of 
meeting some person who could 
accommodate him with a tempo- 
rary cage or box, and during this 
time he attended to the wants of 
the two young birds in the nest, 
and went twice a day and placed 
grubs and worms on the cleared 
spot in front of it, and the male 
bird took full responsibility and 
started to feed the young. How- Our Camp in the forest, outside Don Dorrigo scrubs, October 1898. 
ever failure overtook him in 
securing anything to put the bird in, and he brought her back and liberated her at the nest, but not 
before he had taken a careful description. The young birds are grey all over, and the female, a 
description also of which has never been previously recorded, as far as I am able to ascertain, gives 
the following description :—About one inch shorter than the male, and possesses no whitish mark 
under the throat, as is the case with the male, the underneath parts being devoid of rufous and are 
grey instead ; the back and other parts are similar to those of the male. Having had the bird in his 
hand, and under close and favourable observation, he was thus enabled to give me this correct and 
valuable description, this being the first time a female had ever been handled. 
[A coloured illustration of one of these eggs will be seen in A. J. Campbell’s book on “ Australian 
Birds Eggs and Nests,” on plate 16. On pages 506-7 are my notes relating to the find, also the 
accompanying photograph of nest in natural position, as shown on page 17.] 
Specimen A. measures = 0°92 x 0°72. 
Specimen B. measures = 0°87 x 0°72. 
