298 
CHARADRIADJE. 
specimens in the Dobroyde Collection, taken by Dr. Ramsay at 
Macquarie Fields in 1860 are of a stony-white colour with 
very obscure markings of blackish and pale brown. This bird 
often resorts to the same spot to breed year after year, even 
though its eggs be repeatedly taken. 
Two eggs in the Australian Museum Collection measure as 
follows :—length 2T8 x 1*67 inches ; (B) 2T8 x l - 65 inches. Two 
eggs in the Dobroyde Collection, taken at Nanama near Yass, by 
Mr. John Ramsay in October 1866, measure, length (A) 2-35 x 1-6 
inches; (B) 2-28 x 1-55 inches. 
Specimens taken at Yendon, in December 1878, give the 
following measurements : — length (A) 2'22 x 1-65 inches; (B) 2'3 
xl-63 inches. 
This bird breeds in September and continues during the 
four following months. 
Dr. Ramsay describing the eggs of this species in the Proc. of 
the Zool. Soc. for 1877, p. 335, writes as follows : — “A curious 
variety of the egg of this species is sometimes found ; it is 
of a rich creamy-buff, clouded with a duller tint, or irregularly 
and indistinctly blotched with dull brownish-buff. On showing 
some of this variety to the late Mr. John Macgillivray, author 
of the “Voyage of the Rattlesnake” &c., he assured me they 
were so remarkably similar to the one found by the late 
Commander J. M. R. Ince, at Port Essington, and described by 
Mr. Gould in his “Handbook to the Birds of Australia, Vol. ii., 
p. 213, as that of Emeus rnagnirostris, that no doubt as to their 
identity remained in his mind. On every occasion that I have 
obtained the buff coloured egg, the accompanying one was of the 
usual heavily blotched variety, with but a few markings at the 
thin end.” 
Hal. Derby, North-West Australia, Cape York, Rockingham 
Bay, Port Denison, Wide Bay District, Dawson River, Richmond 
and Clarence Rivers Districts, New South Wales, Interior, 
Victoria and South Australia, West and South-West Australia. 
{Ramsay.) 
