THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
of the circumstance, thinking that the bird was merely perched there ; but 
remarked that the nest appeared recently constructed and differed entirely 
from the scores of nests of many species of birds surrounding me. 
“ After obtaining a number of spoonbills’ and other eggs, I was return- 
ing to land, and in doing so again passed the same tree, and the Ibis again 
flew off the nest. This aroused my interest, and I at once swam to and ascended 
the tree, and found that the nest contained one egg of a beautiful greenish 
colour, somewhat resembling that of Ardea novce-hollaTidicB, but much brighter ; 
this egg I took, but unfortunately broke it whilst returning to land. The 
nest was placed in an upright three-pronged fork of a small tree, and was entirely 
composed of branches of box {Eucalyptus) leaves, built up to about a foot in 
height, slightly hollow at the top, and without any lining beyond the leaves 
of which it was composed. 
“Thinking it probable that I might And other nests of this bird in this 
large and secluded swamp or lake, I again visited it on the 2nd of the present 
month (November) and when swimming up to the tree from which I had 
taken the egg on my previous visit, I saw the Ibis, to my surprise and gratifi- 
cation, again fly off the nest, which on examination contained three beautiful 
eggs. A further search amongst the thickly growing trees resulted in the 
discovery of another nest which also contained three eggs, but these were so 
much larger than the previous ones that had I not seen the bird on, and fly 
off the nest, I should have considered them as belonging to some other 
species ; but there is no possible doubt as to their identity, for, owing to 
incubation having begun the bird was very reluctant to leave the nest, and 
let me approach almost to arm’s length before she did so. This nest was 
exactly similar to the preceding one in material and structure, and placed 
in a similar position.”* 
The bird figured and described is a female, collected at Parry’s Creek, 
North-west Australia, on February 16th, 1909, by Mr. J. P. Rogers. 
In the American Ornithological Union’s GhecJclist, 3rd edition, 1910, 
p. 92, the species-name used for this bird is autumimlis, the prime reference 
being given as “ Tringa autumnalis Linnaeus in Hasselquist, Reise Palast 
1762, p. 306.” 
I do not use this name as the book was bitten before Linne introduced 
his binomial system in 1758, viz. 1757, and the 1762 edition is simply a 
reprint of that pre-Linnean (an adjective used in the systematic sense, in 
this case of a book written by Linne himself) work. In the 10th edition of 
the Systeim Naturce, prepared by Linne and published in 1758, he did not 
make use of the names he had proposed in the Hasselquist work. In the 
* Bennett, Proc. Linn Soc. N.S.W., Ser. II., Vol. IV., p. 1069, 1890. 
396 
