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Show 600 MR. E. P. RAMSAY ON [Nov. 16, 1868, p. 387, where a mistake in the description occurs, the upper surface should have been under surface, as the text will show. It is plentifully distributed over the whole Rockingham-Bay district, and regarded by the aborigines there as sacred and as having had something to do with their first coming to that part of the country. This species seems to be more active than other Sittellce I have met with. They are usually found in small troops, and seem iu a hurry, hopping quickly over the trunks, stems, and branches of the trees, ofttimes head downwards, creeping round and round the limbs, stopping only to disengage some insect from the bark; and calling to each other in a mournful monotonous cry, they fly off to repeat the same actions on some other tree. They move along the forest at no mean pace, usually going in a direct line. The nest, like that of S. chrysoptera, is placed in an upright and usually dead fork of some high branch ; it is made of fine strips of bark with a large quantity of spider's webs, with which small scales of bark resembling that of the branch in which it is placed are felted on so carefully as hardly to be detected even at a comparatively short distance; the rim is very thin, the nest open above and very deep. 155. SITTELLA LEUCOCEPHALA. This very conspicuous species is far from being rare, and is usually met with in open forest country over the whole of northern Queensland as far as Cooktown. Its habits and actions and nidifica-tion do not differ materially from those of the other members of the genus. The notes of all closely resemble each other. 156. CUCULUS CANOROIDES. This species was not rare at Cardwell during the months of March to May. I shot several of them in the moult and young plumage. They do not appear to me to differ much from the European C. canorus, either in the adult or in any of the rufous-tinted immature stages of plumage. I never heard them call. The young have a decidedly strong rufous tint pervading the upper surface. 157. CACOMANTIS FLABELLIFORMIS. 158. CUCULUS, sp. inc.* Both species common from September to May; the latter I find identical with a bird received from India. 159. LAMPROCOCCYX PLAGOSUS. 160. LAMPROCOCCYX MINUTILLUS. Of the former, two specimens only were obtained, it does not appear to be very plentiful; of the latter species only one specimen was shot, near Cardwell. I obtained from the nest of a species of Gerygone an egg resembling that of L. plagosus, but much smaller, which, it is very probable, is that of L. minutillus. * 1 can find no description of this bird in any work. |