617 
On the Birds of North Queensland . 
lining; they lay their eggs on the dry soil, of which the 
mound is composed. The hole the birds make is small com¬ 
pared with the size of the birds themselves. Two eggs are 
laid, being pure white and well glossed. They measure : 
A T58xT14, B 1*48 x 1*15 inch. These specimens were 
found on the 4th of October, 1899. 
XL.— -The Birds of North Queensland. —Part I. On two 
Collections from Cooktown and the Neighbourhood of Cairns. 
By Herbert C. Robinson and W. 8. Laverock, M.A., 
B.Sc., Assistant in the Derby Museum, Liverpool. With 
Field-notes by E. Olive. 
About the middle of last year Mr. E. Olive of Cooktown, 
a port situated on the east coast of Queensland, about 
400 miles south of Cape York, the northernmost point of 
Australia, sent to one of us a small collection of birds wffiich, 
though limited in extent, contained examples of several species 
of considerable interest. At our suggestion he somewhat 
later proceeded to Cairns, some 100 miles south of Cooktown, 
where he collected on the slopes of the Bellenden-Ker 
mountains, which attain an altitude of 5500 feet, being the 
highest in Queensland. The collections there formed were 
principally from the low r er slopes of Mount Sapphiri (which 
is probably the Mount Sophia of the Admiralty Chart), 
and from Mount Bellenden Ker itself, which was ascended 
on three occasions. Here a camp was formed for about 
a week at an altitude of somewhat over 4000 feet, whence 
the mountain was worked to the summit. The collections 
from high elevations are unfortunately not so exhaustive 
as might have been hoped, for, owing to the unusual 
wetness of the season the mountain was enveloped in a 
perpetual fog, wffiich made collecting a matter of extreme 
difficulty, and in addition the majority of the birds were in 
full moult. 
Nevertheless the material obtained does not appear to 
bear out Mr. De Vis's statement (Rep. Scient. Exp. N.E. 
