10 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



particularly struck by the amount of ventilation in it when I had 

 it in my hand. The blackboys who were with me were certain it 

 was a Bower-bird's, but I was doubtful if they had seen one 

 before." It was therefore with feelings of extreme pleasure that, 

 just prior to ray departure from Melbourne, Mr. Keartland 

 informed me he had received that day the long wished for egg of 

 Chlamydodera guttata from Central Australia. It was taken by 

 Mr. James F. Field, during the first week in February, 1899, from 

 a similarly described nest as above, but built in a low bush, in the 

 neighbourhood of Alice Springs Telegraph Station. One egg 

 constituted the sitting. It is elongate-oval in form, of a faint 

 greenish-grey ground colour, with the usual labyrinthine network 

 of zig-zag wavy hair and thread-like loop-lines, scrolls, and figures, 

 crossing and recrossing each other, so characteristic of typical 

 eggs of the Chlamydoderye. In this specimen there are but very 

 few underlying markings, nearly all of them being well defined and 

 appearing as if they had been placed on the shell with a pen dipped 

 in different shades of umber-brown and violet-grey, the former 

 colour predominating and being more thickly disposed towards 

 the thinner end, where in some places the lines are confluent 

 and form broad irregular-shaped patches, and short wavy streaks. 

 The texture of the shell is very fine and its surface lustreless. 

 Length, 1.56 x 1.02 inch. In shape, size, colour, and disposition 

 of its markings it cannot be distinguished from fairly typical eggs 

 of its near ally, C. maculata. 



Egg of Chlamydodera guttata (natural size), reproduced from a photograph. 



The eggs of four out of the five species of the genus Chlamy- 

 dodera inhabiting Australia are now known. According to the 



