70 
The Emu. 
rookeries. Not only did parties come from Melbourne, but 
from Geelong and even Ballarat. Several ladies accompanied 
their husbands, being provided with tents and the necessary 
utensils to enjoy the novelty of an egging picnic for a few days. 
Forgotten Feathers. 
One of the first-described nests of the Coachvvhip Bird was 
recorded in a paper read by A. Dobree, Esq., before the Royal 
Society of Victoria on 27th August, 1861. The writer says : — 
" The present nest and eggs were obtained by me near the 
banks of the Yarra Yarra, near Heidelberg, on one of those 
points of land or ' bends ' of the river still left in their 
original state, and where the underwood and tangle are ex- 
tremely dense. . . . The female bird was sitting so closely 
as almost to allow herself to be captured, thus removing all 
doubt as to the identity of the nest and eggs. The nest was in 
the most tangled part of the thicket, and was placed in the 
forked branches of a shrub, about 4 feet from the ground. It is 
cup-shaped, about 5 inches outside diameter ; the exterior of dry 
slender twigs, and the interior lined with thin fibres and a few 
pieces of horsehair, the latter evidently owing to the accidental 
vicinity of some farms ; the whole structure is neither very 
solidly nor elaborately built. It contained two eggs — length 
exactly one iiicJi^ extreme width t J iree- quarters of an inch. In 
shape they are not much pointed at the thinner end, and the 
greatest girth is about the middle. Their ground colour is pale 
greenish-blue, with streaks and dots of various sizes scattered 
pretty equally over the whole surface ; these markings are of a 
brownish-black colour, and of two kinds — the one being very 
distinct and sharp, the other somewhat less numerous, more 
greyish, and much fainter, having the appearance of being under 
the shell. From the fact of the bird sitting so closely, I con- 
clude that no more than two eggs are generally laid, though the 
present ones had not yet been perceptibly incubated. I regret 
to say I have kept no precise memorandum as to the date of the 
finding of the nest, but believe it to have been about the end of 
October." 
It may be added that the Coachwhip Bird was heard in 
Willsmere Park, East Kew, amongst the dense scrub which then 
existed there, several times as late as the spring and summer of 
1886. The bird was possibly there later, but an interval of four 
or five years elapsed before the observer's next visit, and then it 
was not to be heard or seen. A Satin Bower Bird was seen 
there during the same year. 
Concerning EpJithiannra albifrons, whose nest he regarded as 
up to that time undescribed, Mr. Dobree wrote (Trans. Roy. 
Soc. Vict., vol. v., p. 143) : — " It may be met with in the dry 
portions of the swamps extending between the Saltwater 
