was therefore a
contribution to the Australian fauna.

Among many additions to the ornithological collections of the voyage were
eight or nine new species of birds, and about seven others previously
known only as inhabitants of New Guinea and the neighbouring islands.*
The first of these which came under my notice was an enormous black
parrot (Microglossus aterrimus) with crimson cheeks; at Cape York it
feeds upon the cabbage of various palms, stripping down the sheath at the
base of the leaves with its powerful, acutely-hooked upper mandible. The
next in order of occurrence was a third species of the genus Tanysiptera
(T. sylvia) a gorgeous kingfisher with two long, white, central
tail-feathers, inhabiting the brushes, where the glancing of its bright
colours as it darts past in rapid flight arrests the attention for a
moment ere it is lost among the dense foliage.

(*Footnote. Many of these have since been figured and described, with
accompanying notes on their habits, etc., in the recently published
Supplement to Mr. Gould's Birds of Australia.)

I may next allude to Aplonis metallica--a bird somewhat resembling a
starling, of a dark glossy green and purple hue, with metallic
reflections--in connection with its singular nest. One day I was taken by
a native to the centre of a brush, where a gigantic cotton-tree standing
alone was hung with about fifty of the large pensile nests of this
species.

NATIVE BIRD-NESTING.

After I had made several unsuccessful attempts to shoot down one of the
nests by firing with ball at the supporting branch, the black volunteered
to climb the tree, provided I would give him a knife. I was puzzled to
know how he proposed to act, the trunk being upwards of four feet in
diameter at the base, and the nearest branch being about sixty feet from
the ground. He procured a tough and pliant shoot of a kind of vine
(Cissus) of sufficient length to pass nearly round the tree, and holding
one end of this in each hand and pressing his legs and feet against the
tree, he ascended by a series of jerks, resting occasionally, holding on
for half a minute at a time with one end of the vine in his mouth. At
length he reached the branches and threw me down as many nests as I
required. He afterwards filled the bag which he carried round his neck
with the unfledged young birds, which on our return to the native camp on
the beach were thrown alive upon the fire, in spite of my remonstrances,
and when war