THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 119 
Jackson’s catalogue and notes on the collection. The book ts 
for private circulation only, and comprises nearly two hundred 
pages of surfaced paper, with about a hundred process blocks 
of birds, nests, and eggs, and the places in which they are 
found, all exquisitely reproduced. Those who are familiar 
with A. J. Campbell’s “Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds,” 
will remember that Mr. Jackson’s photographs formed a con- 
siderable part of the illustrations of that work, and will find 
many old friends much better represented in this new volume. 
Special interest is centred in the Jackson Collection, inasmuch 
as Mr. Jackson was the first to take the eges of the New South 
Wales Bird of Paradise (Ptilorhis paradisea), better known as 
the Rifle-bird, and his own notes are given at length for the 
first time, together with a beautiful series of photographs of the 
birds, nests, eggs, and the scrubs in which the latter were 
taken. 
Another absolutely unique clutch which reposes in Mr. 
White's cabinet, is that of the Rufous Serub-bird (Atrichia 
rufescens, Ramsay). This anomalous Passerine genus has only 
one near relative, the Lyre-bird (Menura), and its two species 
are, extraordinary to relate, very restricted in their habitats, 
and confined to small patches of country on opposite sides of 
the continent. The bird I am speaking of is confined to the 
coastal scrubs of northern New South Wales, from the Dorrigo to 
the Tweed, while the Noisy Serub-bird (4A. clamosa) is. only 
found in the scrubby country at the back of Albany, W.A. The 
nest and eggs of the eastern species found by Mr. Jackson still 
remain the only ones known to science, and as the scrub in 
which the bird lives is fast vanishing before the advance of 
civilisation, and the species is probably doomed to early ex- 
tinction, they will possibly be even more valuable and interest- 
ing in fifty years’ time. : 
Two more of Mr, Jackson’s finds were the first authentic egg 
of the Koel, or Long-tailed Cuckoo (Hudynamis cyanocephala), 
and the top-knot pigeon (Lopholaimus antarcticus). It is 
rather extraordinary that, although this bird is found in such 
large flocks, its eggs should be so scarce in collections, but 
when one looks at Mr. Jackson’s photograph of his party in the 
act of taking the egos from the almost inaccessible tops of a 
scrub fig, the scarcity is easier to understand. 
It is rather a pity that the imformation afforded about 
several rare clutches is meagre, but all collectors know the 
difficulty of obtaining full data. The book as it stands forms 
a valuable addition to our ornithological literature, and should 
be helpful when the final history of Australian oology comes to 
be written, 
LH. 
