181. Babax lanceolatus woodi

(181) Babax lanceolatus woodi Finn.
THE MOUNT VICTORIA SMALL BABAX.
Babax lanceolatus victorioe, Fauna B. I., Birds, 2nd ed. vol. i, p. 188.
Babax lanceolatus woodi, ibid. vol. viii, p. 600.
Venning refers to Finn’s note on this Babax (Journ. Bomb. Nat. Hist. Soc. vol. xxi, p. 623) but, curiously, does not notice that Finn, as we should expect of so keen an observer, recognizes the differences between the Victoria bird and lanceolatus and gives the former a name, woodi. Wood’s specimen was collected at Kampetel at an elevation of 7,000 feet.
Venning was apparently the first collector to take the eggs of this little-known Babax. He writes (vide supra): “One nest found by my wife on the 13th April. The nest was an open cup composed of dead leaves and thick grass stems lined with fine root fibres about two feet above the ground between the stems of a small thorny bush at the head of a little swamp. The interior diameter of the nest was 3.1/2 inches with a depth of 1.1/2 to 2 inches. When found there was only one egg but a second was laid on the 14th, after which the bird was continually on the nest until the 18th, when the bird was shot and the nest taken. The bird was very difficult to see after it had once left the nest and skulked in the thickest bushes.”
Shortly after this J. P. Cook took a nest with three eggs on the 1st of June and later Grant took nests in April and May, containing two and three eggs respectively. Both these collectors describe the nests as very similar to that taken by Venning.
Wickham took a nest, of which he writes : “The nest of one which I took just below Mt. Victoria was high up in a tree and not a bit difficult to find.” This was in April and the nest contained two blue eggs.
The eggs only differ from those of the preceding bird in averaging rather larger. Of the five nests of which I have records, two contained three eggs and three contained two.
Ten eggs average 28.4 x 20.7 mm. : maxima 30.5 x 21.8 mm. ; minima 26.6 x 20.1 and 29.0 x 20.0 mm.