Z2U MBhwmf&mm. 



form. The eggs are two or three in number, o£ a rich salmon- 

 red, spotted with a darker tint, some of the spots fleecy, confluent, 

 and distributed alike all over the surface of the shell, rather closer 

 near the thicker end, but not forming a zone there ; in A., a few 

 are confluent on the thick end forming a blotch on the top of the 

 egg. In B. the spots are more scattered and obsolete markings 

 of pale lilac are dispersed here and there over the surface. Length 

 (A) 1-04: X 0-7 inch ; (B) 1-05 x 0-75 inch. From Mr. BcuriiordUs 

 Colleetion. (Ramsay, P.L.S., N.S. W., Vol. vii., p. 52.) 



Mab. Derby, N.W. Australia, Port Darwin and PortEssington, 

 Gulf of Oarpentaria, Dawson River. (Ramsay.) 



Genus ACANTHOEHYNCHUS, Gould. 



■X ACANTHOEHYNCHUS TENUIROSTRIS,*Z,a</«im. 



Spine-bUl. 

 Gould, Hcmdbk. Eds. Aust., Vol. i., sp. 339, p. 551. 'JE. ^V- 



This pretty bird is widely distributed over the eastern and 

 southern portions of the continent of Australia, it is a tame and 

 familiar species being found alike in our public and private gardens 

 where it may be seen extracting its food from the various flowers 

 with its long slender spine-like bill. The nest of this species is 

 placed in a low tree, or thick bush ; one found at Heathcote on 

 the Illawarra Line, on the 30th of October 1686, was buUt in the 

 dead leafy twigs of a gum sapling ; it was cup-shaped, and rather 

 roughly formed on the jexterior with fine twigs and grasses, and 

 lined inside with feathers, it contained two eggs in an advanced 

 state ef incubation. Eggs two in number for a sitting, somewhat 

 pyriform, of a pale bufi", becoming deeper in tint and 

 approaching a light' saturnine-red at the larger end, where they 

 are marked with dark reddish-brown spots, intermingled with 

 oWiers of a d«ep bluish-grey, in some instances forming a zone, in 

 dthers scattered over the surface of the shell, but a,lwayB becoming 



