442 PROCEEDINGS OF SECTION D. 



EHYXCH^A AUSTRALIS. 

 Australian Painted- Snipe. 



Figxire— Gould : Birds of Australia, fol., vol. ve., jil. 41. 



Ramsay's Tab. List — RhynchcBci Australis, Gld. 



Previous Descriptions of Eggs — Ramsay : P.L.S.. N.S.W., 

 2iid ser., vol. i. (1886). North: Cat. Nests and Eggs Austr. 

 Bds., with fig, p. 312 (1889). 



Oeographiral. Distribution — Australia in general. 



Nests — A slight depression in the ground, lined with herbage, 

 near the margin of water. 



Eggs — Clutch, 4 ; inclined to oval in shape, and of striking 

 appearance : ground color is a light yellowish-buff or stone, 

 heavily marked all over with large patches of dark olive or sepia, 

 almost black in instances. These patches, some of which would 

 cover the area of a three-penny piece, assume fanciful figures, and 

 are conjoined Avith lesser and streaky markings. Where the ground 

 color is visible greyish markings appear rmder the surface of the 

 shell. Dimensions in centimetres— (1) 3-62 x 2-62; (2) 3 5 

 X 2-7 ; (3) 3-47 x 2 6. 



Observutio7is ~\n the season of 1839, cm the Upper Hunter, New 

 South Wales, Gould, in dissecting a female, found an egg in the 

 ovarium, nearly the full size and ready to receive its calcareous 

 covering, which left no doubt in the great naturalist's mind that 

 the birds were breeding in that district. My namesake (Mr. 

 Charles E. Campbell) noticed a pair of painted snipe, with a 

 young family, among the herbage bordering the Bullock Creek, 

 Pyramid Hill, Victoria, during October or November, 1884. Mr, 

 North, in describing a handsome set of eggs taken by Mr. K. H. 

 Bennett, near the margin of a swamp at Ivanhoe, New South Wales, 

 in October, states the nest was a depression in the ground, neatly 

 lined with i.road eucalypt leaves. Mr. George Masters, curator 

 of the MdcLeayan Museum, Sydney, showed me a very fine clutch 

 in the collection of that instirution, which Mr. North has since 

 given dimensions, Sec, of. Mr. Masters was the first to explode 

 the erroneous idea that they were the eggs of the true snipe 

 fGallinagoJ, as we had supposed similar eggs to be. 



Breeding Months — September to December. 



8.— VERNACULAR LIST OF BIRDS. 



Bij Colonel LEGGE, F.L.S. 



(This paper is withheld from publication at present as the whole 

 question of preparing lists of vernacular names of birds has 

 been referred to special committees. — See Extract from 

 Minutes of Council, this volimie, page xxii.) 



