310 
CHARADBIAD2E. 
Sab. Derby, N.W. Australia, Rockingham Bay, Port Denison, 
Wide Bay District, Richmond and Clarence Rivers Districts, New 
Soutli Wales, Interior, Victoria and South Australia, Tasmania, 
West and South-West Australia. (Ramsay.) 
Genus HIMANTOPUS, Brisson. 
HIMANTOPUS LEUCOCEPHALUS, Gould. 
White-headed Stilt. 
Gould, Sandbk. Bds. Aust., Vol. ii., sp. 517, p. 24G. 
“ The Stilted Plover must be considered rather a scarce than a 
rare bird in New South Wales, its visits being few and far between. 
When it does come, however, which is usually in some very dry or 
remarkably wet season, it appears in great numbers and in all 
stages of plumage. In 1865 large flocks arrived in company with 
the Straw-necked and White Ibises, (Geronticus spinicollis and 
I'lireskiornis slrictipennis), and took up their abode in the lagoons 
and swamps in the neighbourhood of Grafton, on the Clarence 
River, where, on my visit to that district in September 1866, 
all three species were still enjoying themselves. A few days 
previous to my arrival in Grafton, a black in the employ of Mr. 
J. Macgillivray, and a very intelligent collector, discovered a 
nest of this species containing four eggs, which have been secured 
for our collection. The nest was a slight structure, consisting 
merely of a few short pieces of rushes and grass, placed in and 
around a depression at the foot of a clump of rushes growing near 
the water’s edge of a lagoon in the neighbourhood of South 
Grafton. The eggs vary slightly in form, two being pyriform, 
the other two rather long. The ground colour is of a yellowish- 
olive or light yellowish-brown, lighter when freshly taken—in 
some sparingly, in others thickly blotched and spotted with umber 
and black, the black spots running together and forming largo 
patches on the thick ends. Length from l^/V inch to 1 -jV inch j 
breadth l j- inch to 1£ inch.” ( Ramsay , P.Z.S., 1867, p. 600.) 
