732 Mr. E. Gibson on the Ornithology of 
pretty colours. It is open, not domed. When the space is 
limited the twigs are dispensed with, and only hair and fea- 
thers used. One of the latter description, which [ remember 
taking, was just within a foot of the larger cavity in the same 
tree in which an opossum had taken up its abode. 
About the houses the sites selected are rather curious too 
—in the roof of a barn or outhouse, the nozzle of a pump, 
mouth of a waterpipe, rose of a watering-can (which had been 
suspended to a tree in the garden), the sleeve of an old coat 
left by a workman in the killing-shed, &c. &c. A last in- 
stance is a nest in a small canvas bag hanging in a veranda ; 
the bag was only a foot square, and, from the stiffness of the 
material, required the mouth to be actually wedged open by 
the body of the bird to permit ingress and egress. 
It breeds from about the 20th of October to the middle of 
January, eggs having been taken on the latter date. I have 
noticed, however, that the nest takes nearly three weeks to 
construct. 
Like Mr. Durnford, I formerly imagined that five was the 
number of eggs laid, but have lately taken a clutch of seven, 
the only one out of some scores of nests examined. Mr. 
Durnford found even so many as eight in a nest ultimately. 
They are of a pink ground-colour, thickly spotted with a 
darker shade, and average 75 x 74. 
36. CYANOTIS AZARAE. 
Very common in all our swamps. It is so regardless of 
man that I have had the utmost difficulty in frightening a 
specimen to such a distance as would ensure its not being 
blown to pieces, even with a charge of No. 10 shot from a 
gun-stick. 
Breeding-Notes.—I have taken eggs from 20th November 
to 8rd January, but believe it breeds earlier than the first- 
named date. The nest is built into two or three reeds, about 
eighteen inches from the surface of the water. It is rather 
deep, the walls very thin but astonishingly strong, being 
composed of the dry papery outside of a species of water- 
rush, gummed together with the glutinous contents of certain 
