■50 Christmas Idaml. 



JS'o. 60, S ad. Flyiug Fish Cove, October 22, 1897. 

 S $ ad. Flying Fish Cove, IN'ovembcr 4, 1897. 

 S ad. Flying Fish Cove, November 12, 1897. 

 S ad. Flving Fish Cove, IS'ovember 21, 1897. 

 ^ 9 ad. Flving Fish Cove, December 29, 1897. 

 ^ juv. Flving Fish Cove, FebniaiT 14, 1898. 

 9 ad. Flving Fish Cove, February 20, 1898. 

 $ ad. Flving Fish Cove, March 7, 1898. 

 9 jnv. Xorth Coast, March 17, 1898. 

 9 ad. Phosphate Hill, November 3, 1897. 



This species is of the group of Merula javanica, but is especially 

 remarkable for the size of its bill, which is very large in proportion 

 to the bird. The sexes are alike in colour, and the j'oung birds 

 arc more dusky brown, with pale shaft-lines to the feathers of the 

 upper surface. In the young the bill is horn brown, not yellow, 

 and the under surface of the body is mottled with dusky-brown 

 edges to the feathers. 



[The Grround-Thrush is common everj-where, but is most numerous 

 near the coast. Like the other birds of the island, it is very tame, 

 and when I was breaking up rotten wood searching for beetles, 

 several of them would stand (juite close \>\ in reatliness to pick 

 up any grubs that were uncovered. Its food consists of insects, 

 seeds, and any canion it can find, and I have seen one kill a small 

 brown lizard, though it seemed to have some difficulty in doing so. 

 "When hunting for insects among the dead leaves, the colours of the 

 plumage harmonize so exactly with the surrounthngs that, were 

 it not for the bright yellow beak and eye-lids the bird would be 

 almost invisible. The alarm cry is much like that of the European 

 Blackbird, and in the pairing season (December-January) the male 

 has a song something like that of the English Thrush, but harsher 

 «nd less varied. The nest is made of fibres of the wild sago-palm 

 {Arcnga listen), skeleton leaves, and other vegetable fibre ; it is 

 not miiddined. One nest was taken from the crown of a screw- 

 pine (Pandaims), another from the hollow top of a broken tree 

 trunk, some fifteen feet from the ground. Eggs were found in 

 December, and in the following month young birds just able to 

 fly were numerous, and continued to be so till April. — C. W. A.] 



Family HIUrXDII^ID^. 



29. Hirundo gutturalis. 



Hirundo gutturalis, Scop. : Sharpe, Cat. B. Brit. Mus., x, p. 134 (1885). 



9 juv. Flj-ing Fish Cove, October 16, 1897. 

 A young female of the Eastern Chimney Swallow, in moult 

 from the first plumage to the glossy dress of the adult. 



