Birds of the Fiji Islands. 149 
than three—a family party, father, mother, and chick ; for, 
strange to say, the female never lays more than one egg. We 
found so many nests with solitary nestlings, and saw so many 
family parties, that there can be no doubt of the fact, which, 
so far as I can call to mind, is unique among the Insessores. 
We were a month or three weeks too late for their eggs, and 
too early for the second hatch, which I suspect they have, as 
the forest was full of young birds. The nests had chiefly 
fully fledged-young ones; and only one had a single fresh egg ; 
off this last I shot the female. ‘This nest was built at the 
forked extremity of a thin horizontal twig, about four feet from 
the ground (none that we saw were out of reach of our hands), 
composed of fibres and the macerated strands of a species of 
flag, and lined with feathers, among which I detected the 
brilliant yellow breast-plumes of Pachycephala torquata (to 
which they seemed partial) and those of Carpophaga latrans. 
The structure, though light, is tolerably thick ; diam. 3! 9!" 
outside, 1! 9" inside; depth 2 9!". The eggs have a pale pink 
ground, generally coloured with dark pink spots of various 
sizes, the colour of which seems to have run at the edges. 
Another egg was almost white, with minute pink freckles ; 
but it was addled, and, I think, a season old, and consequently 
bleached. Axis (of the good egg) 1", diam. 9". 
In habits Lamprolia victorie shows considerable affinity to 
Thamnobia in its jerky motions, mode of flight, clambering 
up the thick (or thin) lianas, drooping its wings and elevating 
its tail. My son saw one clinging upright to a tree and dig- 
ging into an ants’ nest ; one had its mouth full of white ants, 
destined probably for its young. It has a variety of cries, 
but no song (that we heard); it chattered defiance at us if 
near its nest, and was not at all shy. At other times it ut- 
tered a stridulouscry. The mouth of the young bird is bright 
yellow inside. When flying through the forest its course 1s 
pretty straight and swift, not jerky or undulating; it rarely, 
if ever, ascends trees of any altitude, always keeping to the 
undergrowth. 
RHIPIDURA ALBICOLLIS, Layard. 
This pretty little “ Fan-tail” is rather abundant in Taviuni. 


