304 Mr. E. L. C. Layard’s Notes of a 
unlimited the whole time. The birds are very good eating, 
both roasted or as soup. 
One day I made some natives guide me to a place up the 
mountains which they told me was an especial breeding-place. 
They led me a dreadful tramp ! climbing up and down almost 
perpendicular ravines, where I had to swarm up banian-tree 
roots like a monkey. At length, just as I was about giving 
up the hunt, they brought me to a steep ravine, thickly covered 
with dense bushes on both sides. This ravine was terminated 
by a huge wall of rock, under which was an open space of 
about twenty square yards, all of small round volcanic pebbles. 
This place bore evident signs of being continually dug over, 
and my natives got a dozen eggs from among the pebbles with- 
out any loss of time. How they escaped being broken when 
they were covered up, I cannot make out, as the shells are so 
thin they invariably crack when boiled. I was very fond of 
the eggs, cooked any way, though my two messmates, the 
officers of the ‘ Renard,’ were not. The great holes in the plain 
are easily accounted for. A Megapode scratches a hole and 
buries her egg; a native comes along, rakes out the egg with 
his hands, but does not fill the hole up again. Another bird 
lays at the bottom of the excavation, and the native digs it 
out again, until at length a perfect tunnel is formed in the 
soft volcanic earth. The birds were not nearly so common 
on the Duke-of-York Islands as in Blanche Bay. The eggs 
are a perfect oval; pale cinnamon-colour; axis 3", diam. 
TV! 10!” 
NyctTIcoRAx CALEDONICUS (Gm.) ? 
Found everywhere (L. L.). 
[The Nankin Night-Heron brought by L. L. differs very 
considerably from New-Caledonian birds, so much so, that I 
should propose, if, on examination of a series of specimens, 
the variation proves constant, to separate it under another 
name. 
The differences are as follows:—The upper parts are a 
clear ciunamon-red ; in N. caledonicus they are almost brown. 
The black crest does not come so far down the neck as in N. 
