THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
immature birds, and the parent birds were also white, I am practically 
certain that they interbreed. August 5, 1894 — nest with two eggs ; also on 
August 26, 1894, a nest with three eggs, a blue and a white bird being 
near it (the only ones). — September 25, 1894 : found a nest on Fraser Island 
with one egg, from which a white bird flew. — June 24, 1896 : shot a blue 
and a white bird that were feeding together, apparently mated ; no others 
near. — September 6, 1901 : a nest with three eggs, having blue and white 
parent birds ; white female and blue male shot off it. — September 1, 1901 : 
nest with three eggs on high sandstone cliff on beach near Mauds Landing 
(North-west), white male and blue female. — December 14, 1896, saw fledged 
birds (blue) at Fraser Island. I have a skin of the white form from a bird 
shot at Albany by Captain Winger, the Harbour Master, who kindly for- 
warded it to me as a rarity. Many of the feathers of the mantle and 
scapulars have streaks of blue-grey irregularly placed near the extremities.” 
Ramsay {Proc. Zool. Soc. (Lond.) 1877, p. 342), says: “From an 
examination of a fine series of these birds ... I quite concur with Mr. 
Gould’s and Mr. Masters’ opinion [that the blue and the white birds are 
the same]. Remains of the slatey-blue being found on the primaries and 
wing-coverts of some of the white birds tend to prove D. greyi is but 
the adult of D. jugularisP 
“ Mr. Walker {Ihis 1892, p. 257) says the birds from Adela Islands, 
North-west Australia, are of a peculiar light greyish ochreous tint.” This 
I find to be so. 
Mr. Atkinson {Austr. Mus. Cat., no. 12, p. 319) records the mating of 
a blue and a white bird in Tasmania. 
“ Some of these nests appear to have been built year after year, a few 
of them standing from 3 to 4 feet high, others being only a few sticks on a 
bough of a low tree or between large rocks.”* 
“ In one nest I saw two young nearly fledged, one being snow white, 
the other slaty-black plumage. In one other case I saw an adult bird of 
each coloured plumage attending to a nest with three young, all of which 
were of the slaty-black plumage. Both male and female assist in feeding 
the young, but this only takes place at low tide ; at high tide the birds are 
to be seen perched on rocks just above the water. Their call note is 
nothing more than a grunt. 
“ When it flies it draws back its head, as it were, between its shoulders, 
so that the neck presents an arched appearance, with the concavity down- 
wards and forwards. ”t 
* Austin, Emu., Vol. VII., p. 176, 1908. 
fid., Austr. Mua. Sp. Cat., no. 1, Vol. IV., p. 32, 1913. 
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