322 ABDKIDJE. 



Wide Bay District, Dawson River, Richmond and Clarence Rivers 

 Districts, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia, West, 

 and South- West Australia, South Ooast New Guinea, f Ramsay.') 



BUTOROIDES MACRORHYNCHA, Gould. 



Thick-billed Mangrove Bittern. 



Gould, Hmdbk. Bds. Aust , Vol. ii., sp. 560, p. 316.JX22I 6 



This species used to breed freely at one time in the neighbourhood 

 of Sydney. Mr. John Ramsay found several nests in the 

 Mangroves on the Parramatta River as early as September 1860. 

 The nest is composed of a few sticks placed crosswise on the 

 boughs of a Mangrove. Eggs two or three in number for a sitting 

 of a pale bluish-green; length (A) 1-65 x 1-2 inch; (B) 1-75 x 

 1 '3 inch; (C) 1"7 x 1"25 inch. There is a fine sejjies of these 

 eggs in the Dobroyde Collection. 



Sab. Wide Bay District, Richmond and Clarence Rivers 

 Districts, New South Wales. (Ramsay.) 



BUTOROIDES JAVANICA, Horsfield. 



Little Mangrove-Bittern. 



Gould, Handbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. ii., sp. 561, p. 317. 



" Although generally this is a solitary species, yet at times it 

 congregates in considerable numbers. Gilbert found a colony 

 breeding on two small islets in Coral Bay, near the entrance of 

 the harbour of Port Essington. Their nests, about thirty in 

 number, were built both on the mangroves and on the branches 

 of the yellow-blossomed Hibiscus; they were very frail structures, 

 consisting of a few small twigs placed across each other on the 

 horizontal branches, and none of them were more than six feet 

 from the ground, each contained either two young birds, or two 



U-2 



