72 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



male stops about while the female is on the nest, and they get 

 greatly excited if their eggs are taken.) 



Centropus phasianus, Coucal. 



This cuckoo is found all over Northern Australia, and as far 

 south as the Clarence River district on the east coast, it having 

 local variations in colour. As it lives so much on the ground, and 

 has to often force its way through the thick grass, its feathers, 

 especially on the head, neck, breast, and back, are very stiff, the 

 shafts being like stiff bristles. Another curious thing is that the 

 eyelashes are of a similar texture, feeling like pieces of wire, and 

 evidently intended to shield the eye beneath. They are heavy 

 flyers, and much of their time is passed on the ground, where 

 they usually make their grass nest in a tussock of coarse grass 

 and draw the tops together ; but sometimes they nest in Pan- 

 danus Palms. One was found on the ground on 21st December, 

 which contained four eggs. They are cream colour, with a 

 coaling of lime on, which easily gets scratched. They are glossy, 

 and measure — (a) 1.28 x 1.8, (b) 1.24 x 1.6, (c) 1.18 x i.io, 

 (d) 1.28 X 1. 12 inch. 



In this paper I have given descriptions and measurements of 

 some common eggs, but my reason for doing so is that oologists 

 may be able to compare their size with those of similar birds 

 breeding in Southern Australia, for as a rule eggs laid in 

 Northern Australia are smaller than those laid by similar birds in 

 the south. 



ON THE BVTTERFLY LIBYTHUA GEOFF ROY J, Godart. 



By Jas. a. Kershaw, F.E.S. 



{Read lefore the Field Naturalists' Cluh of Victoria, Vltli June, 1899.) 



Owing to the increased facilities afforded for obtaining speci- 

 mens of some of our rarer butterflies, and access to works of 

 reference hitherto difficult to obtain, we are gradually perfecting 

 our knowledge of the nomenclature of our Australian Lepidoptera. 

 The great extent of variation existing in many species and 

 scarcity of specimens to refer to has been responsible for the 

 creation of synonyms, and consequent confusion, which cause 

 much trouble and loss of time to workers to unravel. In the 

 species under notice we have another instance of this, illustrating 

 the care one must exercise in creating new species from a limited 

 number of specimens or without proper access to good works of 

 reference. This species was, I believe, first recorded from Aus- 

 tralia by the late Sir William Macleay, in 1866, in the Trans. 

 Ent. Soc. N.S.W., i., p. 61, under the name of L. myrrha, Godt., 

 a well-known but totally distinct Indian species, and it was 

 known to entomologists under that name until, in 1891, the late 

 Mr. A. Sydney Ollift" drew attention to it in a note published in 



