"The egg of tliis very interesting species in shape and ground colour is not unlike a miniature 

 Oyster ("ateliers, only more heavily blotched; ground colour is of a light yellowish-buff or stone, heavily 

 marked all over with large well-defined patches of very dark olive, approaching Chinese ink colour. These 

 patches, some of which cover the area of half a threepenny-hit, assume fanciful figures, and are conjoined 

 with other smaller and streaky markings. Where the ground colour is visible, a few light greyish markings 

 appear as if under the shell's surface. Length, I inch 4 A lines; breadth, I inch I line." 



Gilbert found that the Port Essington bird was only an occasional visitor to the Coburg Peninsula, 

 arriving with the rainy season about November, and disappearing again in a few weeks, affecting during 

 its stay the grassy Hats rather than the lagoons and sandy shores. 



The sexes are exactly similar. 



Crown of the head, deep brownish-black, divided down the centre by a line of bull'; face and chin, 

 buffy-white; sides of the neck, breast, and flanks, washed with pale reddish-brown, and mottled with irregular 

 spots of deep brown, which increase in size, until on the Hanks they assume the form of irregular bars ; 

 back, dark brow nish-black ; the scapularies mottled with dee}) sandy-buff and broadly margined on their 

 external webs with pale bull'; wing-coverts, dark blown, largely tipped with pale buff; wings, dark brown, 

 all the feathers slightly fringed with white at the extremities; lengthened flank-feathers, regularly barred 

 with brown and white ; centre of the abdomen, white ; under tail-coverts, buff, barred with dark brown ; 

 four central tail feathers, blackish-brown, crossed near the tip by a broad band of rufous, beyond which is 

 a narrow irregular line of brown, and the tip white ; the lateral feathers alternately barred with dark and 

 lighter brown, and tipped with white; irides, dark brown ; basal half of the bill, yellowish-olive, the remainder 

 dark brown ; legs, yellowish, tinged with olive. ((iould.) 



Habitats: Derby (N.W.A.), Rockingham Bay, Port Dcnison, Wide Bay District, Dawson River, 

 (1.1!.. New South Wales, Interior, Victoria and South Australia, Tasmania, West and South-West Australia. 

 ( litunsaij.) 



GENUS RHYNCELEA (Cuvier). 



TIlHIS genus comprises four widely dispersed species. One is found in the southernmost parts of 

 A America, another in South Africa, a third in India, and a fourth in Australia. They differ 

 from the true Snipe in preferring drier ground and knolls under shrubby bushes near marshy lands, 

 where their food is easily procurable. 



EHYXCH^EA AUSTRALIS (Gould). 



AUSTRALIAN RHYNCH.EA. Genus: Rhynchjsa. 



SO little has this unique species attracted the attention of naturalists that we find Gould is the only 

 one who has collected any information concerning it, and his paper we are thus obliged to give 

 verbatim in default of more varied experiences from which to compile. He says in his exhaustive 

 monograph : — -" The Australian Rhynchaea is a summer visitor to New South Wales, where it arrives in 

 August and September ; but whether its visits are regular, or only occur in such wet periods as fill the 

 lagoons and cause a redundance of rushes and other herbage to spring forth, I know not; in all probability 



