72 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



Cassel, Germany. True, he was not particularly an Australian 

 oologist, but he performed some excellent work in connection 

 with eggs collected in the Austro-Malayan regions, which, as you 

 are aware, contain many Australian forms. I should also name 

 the late Mr. Thos. H. Potts, of New Zealand. He was the first 

 to describe some of our Australian species, notably the eggs of 

 the Bittern (Botauriis poicilopterus), the Australian Egret 

 {Herodias alba), and many of the sea-birds. Mr. Potts was a 

 very fascinating and descriptive writer. One was inclined to 

 linger with pleasure over his pages. I am sure his account of a 

 visit to the breeding haunts of the Great White Egret, in which 

 the reader is brought face to face with the ornamental figures of 

 the birds perched on dead tree branches amid the native 

 grandeur of the river and mountain scenery of New Zealand, 

 reads more like a poem than prose. Mr. Potts was a very old 

 and honourable pioneer, and the quintessence of a field naturalist. 



At the last International Ornithological Congress, held at 

 Buda-Pest, a committee was appointed to investigate the nidifica- 

 tion of the peculiar mound-raising birds of Australia — the 

 Talegallus, Leipoa or Mallee Fowl, and the Megapodes — and for 

 the deliberations of the committee a member of your club was 

 invited to contribute information. 



Items of the most recent interest were the finding of a nest 

 and egg* of Victoria's Rifle Bird {Ptilorhis victories, Gould) by 

 Messrs. D. Le Souef and H. Barnard, on the Barnard Islands, 

 off the Queensland coast, and the nest and eggs of another 

 gorgeously plumaged bird — the Regent Bird (Sericulus melinus, 

 Latham) — brought to the light of oological knowledge indirectly 

 through my visit to the Richmond River district, N.S.W. 

 Previously the only egg described was taken from the oviduct 

 of a bird. 



In going through my collection, I find I possess three species 

 of eggs — viz., the Blood-stained Cockatoo (Cacatua sanguinea, 

 Gould), Western Long-billed Cockatoo (Licmetis pastinator, 

 Gould), and the Porphyrio-crovvned Lorikeet [Trichoglossus 

 porphyrocephalvs, Diet.) — which, as far as I am aware, are still 

 undescnbed ; therefore, in order that our remarks may be up X.O 

 date, I give their descriptions, with data, in the form of an 

 addendum to this paper. 



I now come to perhaps the most important item during the 

 decade—viz., the publication, in 1S89, by order of the Trustees 

 of the Australian Museum, Sydney, of an illustrated work, entitled 

 " A Descriptive Catalogue of the Nests and Eggs of Birds Found 

 Breeding in Australia and Tasmania," written under the direction 

 of Dr. E. P. Ramsay, F.R.S.E., curator, by Mr. A. J. North, F.L.S., 



* A nest and egg previously described by me and these now mentioned are 

 contrasted in the Naturalist for January, 1892. 



