24 Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society. 



are three distinct characters of markings, firstly, light greyish 

 blotches appearing on the inner surface of the shell; secondly, 

 small stripes or hair-like lines of light sienna and umber, 

 painted, as if with a camel-hair brush, in every shape and 

 size round the shell, principally zig-zagged latitudinally, 

 but often taking longitudinal and other directions; and, 

 lastly, over these a few darker and heavier stripes and 

 smudges of umber. Both ends of the egg are com- 

 paratively free from markings. Dimensions in inches of 

 odd examples :— (1) 1'65 x 1*08 ; (2) 1-64 x 1'06. A clutch 

 with more of a yellowish- white ground, and with both 

 ends much freer from markings, measures (1) 1"57 x 1'06 ; 

 (2) 1-5 X 1-07. 



The eggs are very beautiful and most singular in 

 appearance, resembling fine porcelain with hand-painted 

 markings. 



Ohservations. — The beautiful Spotted Bower - Bird is a 

 dweller of the dry interior provinces. 



In a Eiverina timber-belt, with its venerable and dark cone- 

 shaped pines {Callistris), with every branch and branchlet, 

 dead and living, bedecked with ornamental lichens; their 

 sombre character is relieved by the interspacing silvery,needle- 

 like foliage of Hakea trees of lower growth, bearing a crop of 

 curiously-fashioned seed-balls; a species of Acacia with short 

 stiff leaves, and with wood not unlike the West Australian 

 jam -wood for aroma, by its floral stores is celebrating 

 " yellow-haired September" ; the Quondong tree (Santalum), 

 whose pendulous foliage clings like skirts about its dark 

 rough stem, is also seen, besides other dwarf trees called by 

 lengthy botanical names ; while all around the rich, red 

 ground, well grassed, sparkles with the flowers of small white 

 immortelles, — such is the home of the Spotted Bower-Bird 

 as I saw it once in spring. 



There has been some discussion as to who first found the 

 genuine eggs of the Spotted Bower-Bird. I believe (and it 

 is only my belief, without any direct proof, and therefore I 

 am open to correction) that some of the earlier recorded 

 finds, especially those on the coast of the northern portion 

 of New South Wales, were none other than the eggs of the 



