THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
tail dark brown, the middle feathers more or less tinged with blue ; lores, a spot 
on the sides of the neck, chin, and throat white at the base, tinged with lemon- 
yellow ; breast, abdomen, and under tail-coverts rufous-chestnut : axiUaries and 
under wing-coverts cinnamon-rufous ; under-surface of quills brown with cinnamon- 
rufous inner edgings ; lower aspect of tail brown. Eyes black, feet orange-red, 
bill black, tip horn. Total length 180 mm. ; culmen 45, wing 70, tail 32, tarsus 10. 
Figured. Collected at Parry’s Creek, North-west Australia, on the 4th of 
September, 1908. 
Adult female. Similar to the above but with a black fore-head. 
Immature. Resemble the adult. 
Nest. A tunnel in a bank from six inches to two or three feet long. 
Eggs. Clutch, five to six. White, roundish and glossy. 23 to 25 mm. by 19-20. 
Breeding-season. October to December. 
This is one of the birds Latham described in the Additions to the Second 
Supplement to the General Synopsis of Birds from “ Norfolk Island.” As 
noted hereafter, this was incorrect, as this species does not occur on Norfolk 
Island, and the specimen apparently came from Sydney, from which locaKty 
a bird was soon afterwards described under a new name by Shaw and Nodder. 
Latham’s description was soon afterwards recognised, as his name was attached 
to Lewin’s painting, whose remarks read : “It inhabits heads of rivers, 
visiting dead trees, from the branches of which it darts on its prey in the 
water beneath, and is sometimes completely immersed by the velocity of its 
descent.” Swainson, in his first series of Zoological Illustrations ^ gave a good 
painting of this bird under Latham’s name, and discussed the structure of 
the feet, but gave no notes on its habits. 
Vigors and Horsfield, in their Essay on AustraUan Birds, where they 
made so many (necessary) generic innovations, transferred this species to 
Ceyx, on account of its lack of the inner fore-toe, without comment, and 
added: “Mr. Caley thus observes upon this bird in his manuscripts: ‘I have 
never noticed this species leaving the salt water beyond the distance of two 
hundred yards, and seldom so far. It inhabits the harbour of Port Jackson, 
particularly the upper parts of the branches or creeks. Some birds have the 
breast considerably more red than others. I have met with what I considered 
to be the same species in a bushy creek at Western Port. I never saw it ahght 
in trees.’ ” 
The next note is Gould’s, and I here transcribe it, as it shows his close 
criticism of the birds he handled from Australia, as weU as his careful records 
of the habits and manners of the species that came under his own observation 
when in Australia. 
Gould treated this species as being divisible into three species, writing : 
“ With the exception of Swan River, every colony of Austraha, from Port 
Essington on the north-west to Tasmania in the extreme south, is inhabited 
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