APPENDIX. 
397 
three or more upright pronged forks of the branches of small 
« Box ” trees, and were botli composed of bunches of “ Box " 
leaves piled up in the forks to the height of about a foot, the top 
being slightly hollowed out, but without any other lining. On 
the 26th of November I again visited this swamp and found two 
more Ibises’ nest, both of which contained young lately hatched, 
(one three, the other four) covered with black down. One of the 
nests from which I had taken the eggs on the 2nd instant, had in 
the meantime been appropriated by the little Pink-eared Duck 
fMalacorhynchus menibranaceus,) and now contained five Duck s 
eggs enveloped in the usual manner in a mass of down.” 
In the letter accompanying the above description Mr. Bennett 
writes as follows:—“ You will see at the conclusion of the 
description, that had I continued my search at the time I found 
the eggs, the probability is that instead of getting six eggs I 
should have procured thirteen, but I was so benumbed with cold 
swimming about for hours with my clothes on that it was with 
great difficulty I reached the land, and had I been half an hour 
longer in the water, the chances are that the first recording of 
this bird’s eggs in Australia would have fallen to some other 
person.” 
A set of the above eggs are lengthened ovals in form, and are 
of a deep greenish-blue colour, the shell being slightly rough in 
texture and lustreless ; they measure as follows, length (A) P94 
x 1-33 inch; (B) 1-95 x 1-35 inch; (C) D97 x D31 inch. A set 
in the Australian Museum taken on the same date, vary from 
pyriform to a lengthened oval, one specimen being somewhat 
sharply pointed at one end. Length (A) 2 "16 x 1'48 inch ; (B) 
2-21 x 1-4 inch ; (C) 2-2 x 1-47 inch. The eggs of the Glossy 
Ibis can readily be distinguished from those of any other Austra¬ 
lian bird, by the intensity and depth of their colouring. 
Ilab. Port Darwin and Port Essington, Gulf of Carpentaria, 
Cape York, Rockingham Bay, Port Denison, Wide Bay District, 
Richmond and Clarence Rivers Districts, New South Wales, 
Interior, Victoria and South Australia. (Ramsay.) 
