100 MDSCICAPIDiB. 



GERYGONE FLAVIDA, Ramsay. 

 Ramsay, P.L.S., N.S. W., Vol. ii., p. 53. 



" This species is common among the dense belts of mangroves 

 near CardweU ; we found several of its nests containing eggs and 

 young birds on February 26th 1874, when my young friend 

 Master J. Sheridan, an enthusiastic young naturalist, kindly 

 waded nearly up to his knees in black mud to secure them for me, 

 one nest contained the egg of a Cuckoo, exactly the same as that 

 of C plagosus, but smaller than any eggs of that bird I have 

 hitherto met with ; it is probably the egg of C. m,inutillus. The 

 nest is a somewhat bulky structure, and resembles closely a lump 

 of debris left by the floods hanging to the end of some leafy twig, 

 it is composed of shreds of bark, dried water-weeds, and withered 

 grasses, selected, I have no doubt, from the debris of the floods, 

 plentiful on every side. It is oval oblong, with a small side 

 entrance, and suspended by the top to the end of some hanging 

 branch, often a considerable distance from the shore. The eggs 

 are white, with a few dots of reddish-brown at the larger end ; 

 some are altogether white without any markings." Length (A) 

 0-7 X 0%'il inch. {Ramsay, P.Z.S., 1875, p. 587.) 



Sab. Rockingham Bay. {Ramsay,') 



Genus SMICKOENIS, Gould. 



3 SMICRORNIS BREVIROSTRIS, Gould. ■ 



Short-billed Smiorornis. 

 Gould, Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 161, p. 273. 



This little bird is distributed over the greater part of the 

 Eastern and Southern portions of Australia. In the belts of 

 Melaleuca at the mouth of the river Yarra, near Melbourne I 

 have often found the nests of this species. A nest now before me 

 taken from the Australian Museum Collection, is of a swollen 



