LIBRARY OF THE

/>V FOR THE <<^,

^ PEOPLE ^

< FOR ^

^ EDVCATION O

C^ FOR '^

O SCIENCE ^^

GIFT

in memory of |
Robert F. Seibert

DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE,
NE\V SOUTH WALES.

SOME USEFUL
AUSTRALIAN BIRDS

WALTER W. FROGGATT, F.L.S., F.E.S.,

Government Entomologist; President Royal Zoological Society, N.S.W. ; Vice-pres. Wild

Life Preservation Society; Vice-pres. Gould League of Bird Lovers; Vice-pres.

Field Naturalists' Society, N.S.W; Pres. Wattle Day League.

may Ov
<A. J.

PRICE: 10s. 6d.

SYDNEY: WILLIAM APPLEGATE GULLICK, GOVERNMENT PRINTER.

1921.

1 97615— A

CONTENTS.

Introduction —

Bird Protection in Australia . .

History of Protection in other Countries ...

Sanctuaries

The Migration of Birds

Effect of Changing Environments on Habits

Introduction of Foreign Animals and Birds
Section I— Birds of the Garden, Orchard and Field

,, II — Bird.s of the Forests and Brushes

,, III — Birds of Inland Plains, Swamps, Open Forests, and Scrubs

9
10
1?
14

•2a

39

58

PREFACE.

In the Agricultural Gazette of New South Wales, of January, 1896, the
late Mr. A. J. North, Ornithologist to the Australian Museum, commenced a
series of papers under the title of " A List of the Insectivorous Birds of
New South Wales," which appeared at irregular intervals in 1896, 1897,
1900, 1901, 1902, and 1905. The list comprised brief descriptions of 160
birds, and was illustrated with a number of lithographic plates in colours.
Three parts were afterwards issued separately, but such was the demand
that the supply was soon exhausted. So many inquiiies were made concern-
ing the articles that it was decided to issue a second series. The editor at
that time of the Agricultural Gazette, Mr. J. E. O'Grady, undertook the work of
the letterpress and the plates were copied from the figures in Gould's great
folio work '' Handbook of the Birds of Australia " and repi-odiiced by the
three-colour process. This series commenced in the April number of the
Gazette, 1910. In 1912 Mr. O'Grady severed his connection with the
Department of Agriculture, and I was asked to supply the letterpress and
supervise the preparation of the plates of this second series. October, 1915,
saw the conclusion of the series, designed at that period for republishing in
the form of a bulletin. The conditions aiFecting the output of all publications
during the war period has deferred their reappearance until now.

To make the work uniform I have added a chapter on bird protection
and allied questions, and have rewritten the letterpress contributed in the
lirst place by Mr. O'Grady. The plates for the present work were printed
at the same time as those for the Agricultural Gazatte some years ago, and
the names (popular and specific) were worked at the same time. It has been
deemed advisable in the letterpress, however, to adopt in some cases a later
nomenclature.

The popular and scientific name of each species, and the page reference
to Gould's " Handbook of the Birds of Australia " (a standard authority)
has been given ; and for the field naturalist, for whom this book has been
chiefly prepai-ed, a i-eference to Leach's " Bird Book " has also been added.
Among the works consulted in the compilation of this book, the following
may be mentioned in particular : — " Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds "
<A. J. Campbell), vols. 1-11, 1901; "The Useful Birds of Southern
Australia" (Robert Hall), 1907; "Key to the Birds of Australia and
Tasmania" (Robert Hall), 1899; "Wanderings of a Bush Naturalist"
<J. Wheelright), 1861 : "Handbook of the Birds of Australia" (J. Gould),
voL 1-11, 1865; " Voyage to New South Wales" (John White), 1790, in
which a number of plates of birds are given with brief descriptions ; " Birds
of New Holland" (John Lewin), 1822, in which hand-coloured plates of
many of our birds are given ; " An Australian Bird Book " (Dr. J. A Leach,
1911), a pocket-book for field use ; " Nests and Eggs of Birds found Breeding
in Australia and Tasmania" (A. J. North), 1889, catalogue No. 12, Aus-
tralian Museum.

W. W. F.

DEFARTAEiNT OF AGRICULTURE.
NE^ SOUTH WALES.

Some Useful Australian Birds.

INTRODUCTION.

The birds and animals of Australia won my affection in earliest boyhood,
and the matter of their protection, for both economic and less material
reasons, has appealed to me ever since. Like all biid and animal lovers, I
look forward to the day when we may see the existing Acts simplified and
their application enforced by some recognised authority, but that the issue
must depend finally upon the popular attitude to the subject seems to be
obvious. Unless the people themselves are awakened to the beauty and
value of our fauna, no Act, however perfect, can be of much use.

The protection of our native fauna must start from an economic basis, not
a sentimental one. First, show the man on the land the economic value of
the bird or beast ; demonstrate that they work for him by devoui-ing
destructive insects, or have a value as game, and he will not allow their
wanton destruction, and you will need neither policeman nor warden to
enforce the clauses of the act. Then let the teacher come along and show our
rising generation the beauty of form and colour, and the place in the woods
and fields of each living creature. He will soon awaken a sympathy with
the sentimental aspect of the question. Then our birds and beasts will be
protected simply because they are birds and beasts, doing no harm but
adding to the beauty and cheerfulness of the surroundings.

Even now, we less often see strings of birds' eggs, collected by a mis-
guided student of nature, festooning the master's study, or — though the
factor of changing fashion must qualify our optimism — the ladies adorning
their hats with the more or less grotesquely-stuffed skins or heads of birds
that have been unfortunate enough when alive to be good looking. If the
fashionable lady with heron plumes in her hat thought of the nestlings left
to starve to death because their poor mother had some fine feathers on her
head, would she wear them for a single day ? There are many side issues in
a matter of this kind (some of which I have tried to point out in these notes)
which are not taken into consideration by many people.

To protect our animals and birds in a practical manner, from both a
scientific and an economic point of view, we must know something about
the habits of the creatures we are protecting, so that we do not include
any species that the man on the land can prove to be injurious. We would
do well to look round and see what is happening in other parts of the world.
Though many countries have had game laws in force for hundreds of years.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

with very drastic punishments to be meted out to the man who transgressed,
it is only within quite modern times that such a thing as protecting birds
and animals has been considered in any other manner. The first acts to
come into force have always been game laws— not to protect the birds for their
beauty or use to the community, but to enable them to breed and increase in
order to furnish sport to hunters. Later on, game laws were modified on a
more honest plan to protect the animals and birds with a " close season," so
that they cculd breed without being molested, their cash value as game having
bf^en recognised. Next came the practical observer, who pointed out that
the birds that fed upon insects that destroyed plants, pasturage, and crops
must also have a cash value to the man who made his living on the land.
Then we had the first bird protection acts for the preservation of insecti-
vorous birds.

Bird Protection in Australia.

It was a very long time, however, before the many Australian Game Acts
wei'e framed to include anything but game birds, which were protected by a
close season during the time they were nesting. The value or beauty of
insectivorous or harmless birds was not considered; the acts were simply game
acts.

One of the forerunners of legal protection for harmle-s and useful birds
was the publication by the Department of Education in Victoria of a " Chart
of the Insectivorous Birds of Victoria." This gave coloured representations
of a number of the best known useful birds, and was hung in all the country
schools about thirty years ago. In his " Report upon Insect and Fungus
Pests in Queensland," in 1889, Tryon published some interesting notes on the
value of insectivorous birds, and gave a list of those found in the Toowoomba
district. Later, French added plates and popular descriptions of insectivorous
birds to his "Handbook of the Injurious Insects of Victoria."

In the Victorian Bird Protection Act of 1890, in addition to the close
season for game l)irds, fifty groups of insectivorous birds were scheduled,
including a number of introduced species that were to be protected all the
year round. Some of these introduced species are now looked upon as pests.
Since then, all the Australian States have made additions to their old acts,
or brought out more modern cmes, and sanctuaries have been created in lakes,
swamps, estuaries, and forest areas. Many private landowners are now pro-
tecting the wild life on their estates. In 1901, the New South Wales Bird
Protection Act came into force. This included a list of 105 species of insec-
tivorous birds, absolutely protected from the 3 1st of October, 1905, until the
same date of 1915. In a proclamation issued early in 1907 other birds were
added to this list, and twelve groups of introduced game and song birds were
also included.

The Bird and Animals Protection Act of 1918, now in force, is very much
in advance of all the previous acts ; as, unencumbered with long lists of the
scientific names of the protected birds and animals, it simply gives a list of

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

those that are not pi-otected in the first and second schedules. Therefore all
the birds and animals not black-listed are given complete or partial protection,
■with a close season while breeding. Included in the Act is a description of all
the sanctuaries (where no one is allowed to shoot any kind of bird or animal)
in the State. A license fee of £5 is charged all persons who shoot game
for sale, and the number of game birds that the holder of a license is allowed
to shoot each day is regulated. Besides the members of the police force,
about 300 honorary rangers have been appointed and gazetted, including
stock inspectors, forest-rangers, officers of the Department of Agriculture,
and the Council of the Wild Life Preservation Society.

Work of Protective Societies.

Perhaps first in order of the educational agencies active in New South
Wales comes the Wild Life Preservation Society of Australia, which was
founded in 1909 to encourage the protection and preservation of the
Australian fauna and flora. Besides giving popular lectures in town and
country centres, and publishing reports, the members have taken a keen
interest in all legislation dealing with wild life and the protection of game
birds and animals. It was a committee of this society that drew up the
original draft of the latest New South Wales act.

Under the new incorporation, the members of the Royal Zoological Society
are actively promoting the spread of knowledge of our birds and animals, and
with the splendid collection that is being located at Taronga Park, many
town children will be able to know something of the Australian fauna.

The Gould League of Bird Lovers was founded by some enthusiastic officers

in the Department of Education in 1910, as a result of which, thousands of

school children receive a certificate, and promise to protect the birds, their

nests, and eggs.

The Influence of Literature.

The description and illustration oE the habits of our insectivorous birds, by
the various authors who have devoted their attention to them, has also gone
far to enlist the sympathy of the average man as well as materially to benefit
producers. Among the first books on our birds was Lewin's " Australian
Birds," with hand-coloured plates, which appeared in 1822 ; but it was John
Gould who did in Australia what Audubon had done in North America. Gould
issued his great work, in seven folio volumes, giving a complete list, with
coloured plates and life histories of all the Australian birds described up to
that date (1848-69). The publication of his "Handbook of the Birds of
Australia" in 1865 enabled all bird lovers and students to acquire a scientific
and general idea of Australian birds which was not previously obtainable.
It was a happy thought of the educational officers interested in nature-study
to call their children's association " The Gould League of Bird Lovers." In
1911 Leach's "Australian Bird Book,"— one of the most useful field-books
that was ever brought out— was published in Melbourne by an arrangement
with the Education Department of Victoria.

8 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The Necessity for Effective Administration.

The movement before the lovers of animal and bird life is to have the
protection acts administered as the framers intended, and further still, to
have all the State laws dealing with the matter embodied in a comprehensive
federal act. It is only a few years ago that the citizens of the United
States arrived at the same conclusion ; their laws were in even a more
complicated condition than ours are at the present time, for not only did
each State (and there are forty-eight of them) have a different game and
bird protection act within its boundaries, but in some cases several counties
of a single State had different regulations and close seasons, so that the
unscrupulous pot-hunter could step across the boundary line and kill all he
wanted with impunity. The laws of the United States are conside'ed perfect
now, in theory at any rate ; but it is not so much from what they are doing
now as from what was done in spite of the old acts, that we can learn some
lessons. All their big game — bison and deer in their countless thousands —
have vanished off the great plains in one generation. Mr. Mitchell, of
Victoria, Texas, who came to the " Lone Star State " fifty years ago, told me
that he could remember the time when there were more deer on the prairie
than there are cattle at the present time. You have only to take up the
works of any of the waters of thirty or forty years ago to read how prolific
life was on those rich lands. What has become of the countless millions of
the passengpr pigeons that used to take their flight every year over the North
American forests, and which comprised one of the regular food supplies of
the settlers'? They are reduced to a few isolated flocks now nesting in the
Michigan woods.

When the fashion set in for sea-birds' wings to trim ladies' hats some
twenty years ago, there were countless flocks of that beautiful tern known as
the Sea Swallow on all the sands and islands from Cape Cod to Southern
[Florida ; to-day there are only two small islands in the north where a few of
these birds can be found nesting, and the Government keeps paid'wardens on
these islands for their protection. All these great hosts have been slaughtered
to deck ladies' hats with their plumage. In our own State what is more
■common than to see wanton shooting of birds of every kind?

The question then arises, who is to administer an effective fauna protection
act ? And this question has been answered by the only two great agricultural
countries that have taken up the protection in a practical manner — -the
Kingdom of Hungary and the United States of America.

The United States has solved the matter by making this necessary
protection a branch of the Department of Agriculture ; and the officials of
the Department, in conjunction with the oflicers of the Forestry Departments,
look after birds and beasts, and study the many side issues that come up
through a more or less artificial condition when absolute protection is enforced.
About 1858 several workers began to examine the stomachs of birds ; and in
1880 Professor S. A. Forbes, of Illinois, tabulated all the work done in this

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

direction and placed the birds in three groups — injurious, neutral, and
beneficial. On the Ist of July, 1885, the United States Congress established
a section of Economic Ornithology, under the direction of Dr. D. Hart
Merriam, to carry out investigations, including inquiry into the food habits,
distribution, and migrations of North American birds and mammals in
relation to agriculture, horticulture, and forestry. In 1896 this branch
became a division, under the broader title of the Division of Biological
Survey.

In the offices of this division at Washington there are thousands of
stomachs of birds which have been examined and their contents tabulated, so
that the food habits can be determined, and their value as insect destroyers or
otherwise, demonstrated. Maps are prepared showing the migration and range
of the different birds and animals ; and, while the protection of useful ones is
advocated, the methods of dealing with noxious ones are also closely studied.

The Hungarian Central Office for Ornithology was instituted in 1894 by
Count Albon Caaky, Minister of Public Instruction, and after having been
an appendage of the Royal Museum for some years, it was transfen-ed to the
Department of Agriculture. In 1901 Ignacz Dardnye, Minister of Agri-
culture, issued a circular decree, which is one of the most complete and well-
thought-out bird and animal protection acts in existence. In 1908 the
writer met Dr. Otto Herman who had charge of the Office for Ornithology in
Budapest, who«e untiring energy has made for such successful protection ;
not only did he protect all the useful birds, but he showed the people all
through the country their value. A map was compiled in which were marked
150 stations scattered all over Hungary, where professional ornithologists
recorded the migration of as many species as possible ; besides this, 1,300
State foresters recorded the movements of the commoner species.

Artificial nesting-boxes were found so useful to all birds that nest in holes
in trees, that a factory for making them was started ; and fourteen years ago
(1906) the Minister ordered the Hungarian Central Office for Ornithology to
present a scheme for the supply of these artificial nesting-boxes to the State
forests, comprising 5,000,000 acres. This work was carried out.

History of Protection in other Countries.

In 1845 the protection of mid-European insectivorous birds was advocated
by Edward Buldamus, a German enthusiast, and at the initiation of
representative German farmers and foresters, an agreement was later made
between the latter and the Austrian and Hungarian authorities. This wa&
followed by a number of zoologists, in 1873, framing rules for the protection
of bii'ds of economic value. Further effiarts were made in 1876, which
resulted in an international conference meeting in Vienna in 1884. Bird
life protection during the next few years attracted fresh countries to its
standard, and at a meeting in Paris, in 1895, at which numerous countries
were represented, an international convention for the protection of birds.

10 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

useful to agriculture was founded, and rules for their protection drawn up.
A movement of a related character was started at Berne, in 1913, its object
being the consideration of the best methods to be adopted to preserve the
natural beauty of the world, and to prevent the rapid extermination of both
animal and plant life threatened by the expansion of civilisation and
agriculture. Further dcvelopmeiits were interrupted by the war.

In British possessions much has been attempted by legislation to protect
useful birds. The Wild Birds Protection Act came into force in British
India in 1887, prohibiting the possession or importation of birds into
municipal and cantonment areas during the close season. As it was found
that this Act did not protect the birds with feathers or skins of commercial
value, a notification was issued in 1902, under a section of the Sea Customs
Act, which stopped the export by land or sea of any plumes or feathers of
useful birds. In Great Britain the Wild Birds Protection Act, of 1880,
prohibited the taking or killing of wild birds between March and August,
so that they were protected during the breeding season. Eighty-six species
were listed under this act, but as sixty were game birds or sea birds, a very
small number of insectivorous birds obtained legal protection. In 1894
another Act Avas brought into force with the object of protecting the eggs
and nestlings ; but it was only a partial protection, and as the administration
was left in the hands of the county councils no one saw that the clauses
were carried out. The Royal Society for the Pi'otection of Birds has taken
up the movement of providing nesting boxes in the forests, and issues
quarterly reports on " Bird Notes and News." A strong popular sentiment
is fostered by " Bird Days," and by the society giving prizes for the best
essays on bird protection.

Sanctuaries.

One of the most practical and eflfective ways of stopping the rapid
extinction of wild life is to create sanctuaries, where, under natural
conditions, " man is passive and the rest of nature is active." With
their natural food supplies in these reservations, animals and birds breed
freely, and as they increase in numbers and outstrip the food supplies, they
overflow into the surrounding country. This applies to all kinds of birds
and animals, but particularly to game ; and while sanctuaries should protect
wild fowl there is no reason why the overflow of game outside them should
not be shot, and so form a valuable addition to the food supplies of the State,
just as fish supplies do. Thus a well-situated sanctuaiy, besides being a
home for all kinds of useful birds, would be a dep6t for the breeding up of
our game birds — a point that is sometimes lost sight of by sentimental bird
lovers. There is no reason why the true sportsman should not be a nature
lover.

In Great Britain many of the large landed estates are virtually
sanctuaries. Several societies have also been formed to protect both the
flora and fauna, one of the latest being the Society for the Promotion of

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 11

Nature Reserves. Its aims as stated in its prospectus are t — "In view of the
dangers which at present seriously threaten our indigenous fauna and flora
with extinction, to obtain land reserves by gift or purchase." One of the first
nature reserves which was acquired was Wicken Fen, near Cambridge. In
Hungary a large number of the forest areas in the north were treated as
game reserves, and in Germany there was, together with many smaller
reserves, a sanctuary of 16,000 aci-es in the Bavarian Alps, and another of
5,000 acres in East Prussia.

Everybody has heard of the great sanctuary at Yellowstone Park in the
United States, where a small herd of bison, the last of the great mobs of
American buffaloes have been placed in safety. In Uganda, East Africa,
where the great lakes and forests are the last stronghold of the big game
that once spread right down to Capetown, the British authorities have
formulated well thought-out game laws, and ci"eated several huge sanctuaries
into which hunters are not allowed to penetrate.

Holland has purchased Naader Mere as a sanctuary for the nesting water-
fowl, and in Denmark a large tract of heath land has been dedicated as a
nature reserve for the fauna and flora of Jutland. In Switzerland a national
park of 50,000 acres has been made in the Southern Engadine.

In Australia, as will be seen by the following notes, most of the States have"
made large reservations of waste lands as national parks, nature reserves, or
sanctuaries, but no provision has been made to ensure that the regulations are
respected. In Tasmania a number of the smaller islands have been given over
to the sea birds, and the curious neck of land, Freycinet Peninsula, was
dedicated as an area for the preservation of animals in 1906. In Victoria one
of the best known sanctuaries is the National Park at Wilson's Promontory,
which contains 101,730 acres. With the adjoining islands it is controlled by
aboard of management, which has an annual grant of £500; with this they
pay two rangers, and the trustees are re-stocking the place with native
birds and animals. Three other reservations on the coast total about 25,000
acres. Inland they have Buffalo Park of 25,980 acres, Lake Wongon of
9,600 acres, and a smaller one at Tower Hill, in the Grampians, of 1,360 acres ;
and besides these there are many local areas carefull}^ prote(;ted.

In Queensland there are seven sanctuaries which have been proclaimed
Wild Life Protection Reserves, where wild animals and birds are supposed
to be safe ; but little or no supervision is carried out. In addition, there are
several large forest reserves that should be proclaimed sanctuaries, such as
that at the Bunya Mountains, which comprises 22,500 acres. Under the
Wild Animals Protection Act, a number of landowners have had their places
gazetted as sanctuaries, and act as honorary rangers. In South Australia,
Kangaroo Island Reserve comprises 93,440 acres, and is a sanc±uary where
fauna and flora are absolutely protected. The National Park, Belair, of
2,000 acres, is only a nature reserve. In New South Wales two great

12 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

national parks in the vicinity of Sydney — National Park, Port Hacking, of
33,7 19 acres, and Kuring-gai Chase, of 35,300 acres — are sanctuaries, together
with the reserves round the different caves, ranging from 6,000 acres at
Jenolan to 1,400 at Colong. There are also a number of so-called sanctuaries
which exist in name only.

The Migration of Birds.

Though the movements and migrations of animals and birds have been
recorded since a very early date in a general way, it is remarkable how little
was actually known, even down to modern times, about this habit. One
would have thought that the educated observer of the time would have
known something definite of the movements of the migratory birds of
Northern Europe, that congregated together, and every year winged their way
southward in search of food and warmth as the winter months drew near,
returning with the northland summer to rest in their native land. Yet we
find Gilbert White (in that classic, " The Natural History of Selborne,")
gravely stating (Letter lv, October, 1781) that he believed that the great
flocks of martins hibernated during the winter months in or under the dense
thickets of beech scrub near Selborne. The great naturalist, Cuvier, in his
*' Natural History," published in 1820, said, "It appears certain that
swallows become torpid during winter, and even that they pass the season
at the bottom of the water in the marshes." Other writers were inclined to
doubt their living under the water, and explained their disappearance by
stating that they slept through the winter months in recesses of mountain
caves.

The question of migration has, however, been carefully studied during the
last twenty-five years from a scientific standpoint, and as one of international
importance to be considered when drawing up a comprehensive scheme for
the protection of useful birds. It has been for a long time a burning question
in Europe, because of the value of the insectivorous birds to the northern
countries. Countless flocks of migratory insectivorous and song birds,
returning from their winter residence in Africa to Europe for the summer,
rest On the southern shore on their homeward flight. These birds are met
and caught on the Italian coast; bird-lime, snares, nets, and permanent traps
being used. To give some idea of the extent of this destruction. Professor
Vallon stated at an International Convention in Hungary that, in October,
1890, 500,000 small birds passed through the Customs House at Bressica,
chiefly flycatchers, tit-mice, white-throats, and rock-pipets. At Undine
200,000 similar birds wore caught ; at Montegrade in three days 14,000
•swallows were killed, while at Crao enormous numbers of swallows were
netted.

Careful observations have been carried out by marking large numbers of
migratory birds nesting in the north of Europe and making records of the
limits of their southward flight. As an example : among the birds noticed

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 13

feeding upon the plague locusts in Basutoland, South Africa, during the
locusts' invasion of 1909, were many White Storks (Ginconia alba), which
spend the summer in Northern Europe, building their nests on the roofs of
the Northman's house. Several of these storks, over-gorged with grasshoppers,
were caught by the Government officials, and found to have metal rings on
their legs dated the previous season, and which had been affixed to chem by
the observers of the Vogelwarte Institution at Rositten on the Baltic Sea.

In Canada, the importance of having a Migratory Birds Convention
between Great Britain and the United States was considered in 1916. The
migration of birds from Canada to the United States and their return
northward in the summer was of such importance that some years ago the
Canadian Government considered that a uniform close season for game birds
nesting in that country should be passed by the federal authorities of the
United States. After a considerable amount of correspondence, a convention
was signed at Washington for the protection of certain migratory birds in
Canada and the United States. This was known as the Migratory Birds
Convention Act for the Protection of Migratory Birds in Canada ; it came
into force in 191 7. It covers both migratory game and insectivorous birds.

Many of our Australian birds, though they do not leave this island
continent, travel every year from south to north as the winter comes round,
returning from Queensland in the early summer. Among many others the
wood-swallows [Artamus sp.) always reach Victoria before Christmas, nesting
in the low gum scrub, and are thus popularly known by the school children
as "small summer birds," while the Black-faced Graucalus which arrives
about the same time is known as the "large summer bird."

The Australian Snipe [Gallinage. australis), which goes as far south as
Tasmania in the summer months, flies northward at the first hint of winter,
nests in Japan from May to August, and returns to New South Wales in
September and October. Other Australian birds go to the great plains of
Siberia to bring up their nestlings, while the swifts and swallows flitting
about the ponds in Melbourne parks may, a few days later, be twittering on
the telegraph wires at Bourke or far away in central Queensland. I
remember over thirty years ago, watching the gathering together of immense
flocks of swallows, which camped for several nights on the lignum swamps
in north-western Victoria before starting on their northern jouney to avoid
the approaching winter.

The local migrations of Australian birds from one part of the continent to
another, and the gathering together of enormous swarms of certain species of
birds, together with their sudden appearance in localities in which they were
previously unknown or comparatively rare, is very interesting and worthy of
careful record. Dr. George Bennett in his " Gatherings of a Naturalist in
Australia," gives an instance : In 1833 the littl* Water-hen invaded the
settlers' gardens in the Swan River Colony, Western Australia, though they
had never been seen previously on the coast. Captain Sturt recorded a

14 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

similar migration of the Black-tailed Native-hen into South Australia in
1840, when these birds appeared in numbers in the streets of Adelaide.
Gould quotes similar observations in the introduction to the "Birds of
Australia." Tn 1906, on the swampy land of the Darling and Barwon
rivers, I saw these birds covering acres of land. These and other birds come
and go; but we have other experiences where strange birds extend their
range southward or coastward from the interior, and finding the new location
suitable, either take up their abode there, or else return regularly each
season to nest. South of the Murray, in the Gunbower district, no pelicans
were known when selectors began to occupy the lands in 1875, but five years
later, large numbers appeared on the Kow Swamp. They are now to be found
all over the larger swamps and lakes, fishing in all the creeks and lagoons.

Effect of Changinj Environment on the Habits of Birds.

In going into the matter of wild life protection we will find that there
are many unnoticed influences which affect the distinctive fauna of any new
country like Australia. There is not the least doubt that with the advance
of civilisation, when cities spring up, the foi'est disappears ; and where the
farmer ploughs the land the natural herbage vanishes, and so thousands of
little creatures, from insects to birds and animals die out or move on as their
food supply fails. It is not only the gun of the hunter that kills. If you
destroy the natural food of any bird or animal, it may, if of an adaptable
nature, find some of the crops grown by the farmer or gardener just as suit-
able for food as the original supply ; and so a creature which was under
natural conditions, if not useful, at least harmless, becomes a pest.

The same state of things comes about when, through the destruction of a
natural check upon its undue increase, a useful insectivorous bird increases
more rapidly than under the original conditions of life, so that the food supply
is insufficient. The farmers' crops are then affected, perhaps not sufficiently to
wholly counterbalance the good the birds do in the destruction of pestiferous
insects, but to such an extent that the practical farmer takes steps to destroy
with poison or gun, a bird he once looked upon with a friendly eye. On the
northern plains of Victoria I once watched this evolution of useful to in-
ju)-ious birds take place in the course of a very few years. When I first went
on the land it was subdivided into very large paddocks, in which the squat-
ter grazed sheep. Then came the selectors under the new Land Acts ; the
station holdings were cut up into small blocks, and fenced into smaller hold-
ings of 320 acres, or even less. U nder the old regime bird and animal life had
not altered much from earlier normal conditions, under which it is quite safe
to say that from 25 to 50 per cent, of the eggs and nestlings of the magpies.
Magpie-larks, and numbers of other insectivorous birds fell victims to hawks,
crows, Whistling-jackasses and to our innocent-looking friend the Laughing-
jackass. With settlement came sheep-worrying dogs, and the squatter and
selector laid poisoned baits or poisoned the body of a sheep that had been

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 15

worried, with the result that the hawks, crows, and otherflesh-eaters were killed
as well as the dogs. Within a few years the increase of the insectivorous
birds on the plains was very noticeable ; as the ploughman sent his team along
turning over the furro%v, one would see a whole string of magpies and Magpie-
larks behind him picking up the grubs and ^vorms exposed. The plough and
cultivator brought to hand a fresh, if temporary, increase of food, which meant
more nestlings. Then the reaction commenced, the food limit was reached ;
one morning the farmer saw magpies hunting over a paddock where the
wheat was just showing. At first he rejoiced to see his feathered friends at
work for him, probably at a plague of cut-worms or caterpillars. Later on
he crossed the paddock and found many young wheat plants pulled up and
the soft wheat at the rootlets bitten off. His scientific friend across the
creek, to whom he complainefl, said it was impossible ; magpies would not
eat wheat, they were insectivorous ; if they had pulled the wheat seedling
up it was to get at some grub on the roots. Unconvinced, the farmer a few
days later shot a couple of magpies that he had watched at work on his pad-
dock, and on making a rough post-mortem examination of their stomachs,
found the bulk of the contents to be soft, spongy wheat grains from the
ravished wheatfield.

Then he took action and shot magpies until the survivors flew away in
disgust. Since then many thousands of magpies have been shot in both
Victoria and New South Wales for this acquired food habit.

Again, we have several remarkable groups of birds in Australia which have
the tip of their tongue formed like regular little camel's hair brushes, so that
they can be inserted into the cup-like calyx of the eucalyptus and other
honey-bearing flowers, and the nectar thus drawn up into the mouth. These
honey-suckers, belonging to the family Meliphagidce, comprise over fifty
species of very beautiful birds. Gould says, " They are, in fact, to the fauna,
what the eucalypti, Banksise, and Melaleuca are to the flora of Australia.
The economy of these birds is so strictly adapted for those trees that the one
appears essential to the other ; for what can be more plain than that the
brush-like tongue so especially formed for gathering the honey from the
flower cups of the eucalypti, or that their diminutive stomachs are
especially formed for this kind of food, and the peculiar insects that form a
part of it." Yet the very possession of this wonderful mechanism has been
the undoing of several groups of the family ; orchards have been planted near
the forest or in land that once was forest, and the birds, investigating, found
that ripe fruit is just as good as honey, and when dead ripe is just as easily
sucked up into the mouth. Every orchardist knows what damage a party of
Leather-heads or Friar-birds can do in an orchard of ripe fruit.

Then there is the W^hite-eye or Silver-eye, a dainty little bird closely allied
to the honey-suckers, and usually considered a useful bird (in some places called
the Blight-bird, for like the Blue-wren it comes flying through our gardens in
little flocks, creeping through the bushe? and picking off the aphis in large

16 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

quantities in the early part of the year) ; yet later on these birds can do quite
a lot of damage in a fruit orchard among ripe fruit, and can clean out a ripe
pear or persimmon when once they get an opening in the side. The bird-
lover knows of a number of his feathered friends in this doubtful position.
We have the pretty little Rosella parrot, a seed-eater all through the winter
months, but capable of doing a lot of damage in an apple orchard when once
he takes to fruit, and shot as a pest in many of our southern orchards.
Quite a number of the green " keets " ai'e the greatest enemies that the
cherry-growers have in the north.

Yet again we have the Bee-bird (Merops ornatus), and the Wood-swallows
{Artamus) ; they are purely insectivorous in their diet, and must kill an
enormous number of insects, and as the wood-swallows often come south in
the early summer to nest, just at the time when the grasshoppers are tra-
velling in the same direction, they are friends of no small importance to the
fai-mer. But let them come into the bee-keeper's country, and their fondness,
for honey-bees make them his bitterest enemies.

Returning to the difference, or change, in our fauna produced by systematic
rabbit poisoning, the writer thinks a great many loose statements are made.
In the first instance, it is not from the actual eating of the poisoned pollard
baits that native birds are killed, but from feeding upon the dead bodies of
the poisoned rabbits, and, therefore, it is among the larger carnivorous birds
that the death-roll is greatest. Many of these destroy eggs and nestlings of
birds quite as useful as themselves. One of the most deadly enemies of
nestling birds, particularly of those birds that nest in holes in trees, is the
large monitor lizard (the " gohanna " of the bushman), so common in all
inland forest countiy. The poisoning of rabbits has caused the death of
thousands of these iguanas, and while in the Brewarrina district I noted that
wherever there were baits or dead rabbits, dead iguanas were to be found
near every tank or dam.

When bringing in laws to pi'otect our native fauna we must remember,,
when dealing with the larger birds and animals, that at one time before
settlement the blacks and their dogs always acted as a corrective influence
on the breeding of wild animals, and the great droughts that passed over the
interior were a great check on over-population of forest and plain. It is only
a few years ago that the Victorian Government made a strict close season for
the larger kangaroos in the Gippsland forests, yet, in 1909, some of the
farmers in the protected areas found their crops so badly damaged by the
increasing numbers of kangaroos that they waited upon the Premier and
asked that the close season be altered. If a protected bird or animal becomes
a pest, owing to this protection, its numbers must be reduced. In the United
States, under the game laws this is recognised, aiid permission to shoot in
protected areas granted, the quantity of game per man being regulated by
the State authorities and game wardens. In California and Texas, in certain

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 17

districts, each man of a shooting party can shoot three deer, but no more, im
the season, while in some States a farmer can shoot animals and birds on his.
own land as pests, but not outside the boundaries of his farm.

In going through the works of the earlier naturalists one is often struck
with the remarks they make on the early extinction of our larger birds and
animals. Dr. George Bennett in his "Gatherings of a Naturalist in
Australia," published in 1860, says: "We find in England many useful birds
(designated by the ignorant as vermin) have been exterminated, and in
consequence of the increase of destructive insects they have had to be
reintroduced. Now the Australians ought to take a lesson from the
experience of others ; for under the present system of destruction many
valuable species of thai country will be swept away. It is requisite to
preserve the indigenous birds which are now destroyed, not for food, but for
mere wantonness, regardless of whether they are useful or obnoxious. In
the settled parts of the colony, many of the more common tribes indigenous to
the country are no longer seen, and the kangaroos and emus are fast sharing
the same fate." Gould said : " I must content myself by praying that
protection may be afforded to that noble bird the emu in order that it may
not be extirpated from the continent as it neax'ly has been from Tasmania."
Yet experience has since shown us that many of our birds and animals not
only have held their own, but have increased, regai'dless of advancing civilisa-
tion, to such an extent as to become pests. In spite of all its enemies the
emu requires very little protection to multiply beyond what was normal
before the white man reached these shores. Yet the emu has no friends
among the squatters. In Queensland especially, perhaps, this bird has been
treated very badly and is denied the protection through breeding-time accorded
to nearly all others.

Introduction of Foreign Animals and Birds.

The alteration of the balance of power in nature by the introduction of
foreign animals and birds is worthy of careful consideration. The far-reaching
complications that have arisen over the greater part of Australia through the
abnormal increase and spread of the rabbit, and by the destruction of native
animal life through the methods adopted by the landholders to destroy this
pest, ha.ve ah'eady been touched upon. Poisoned baits are respon.=«ible for the
death of some birds ; but the poisoning of water in summer to kill the
rabbits is much more deadly to bird life, and it is a method that should only
be permitted under proper supervision by stock inspectors. The domestic cat
is a very much more serious manace to bird life than most people imagine.
Numbers of ownerless cats are roamina; over our parks and gardens about
Sydney, and as they have to steal or catch their food, they are responsible for
the disappearance of hundreds of our most valuable insectivorous birds. In
the country, cats wander away from the homesteads or shepherds' huts, and
taking to the bush, revert to their natural hunting habits, and bring up
families more predaceous than themselves.

18 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

During the height of the rabbit invasion in western New South Waxes,
some landholders liberated numbers of cats in their paddocks in the hope
that they would multiply and help to check the rabbits, but the latter were
so numerous, and easy to catch, thn.t the cats that confined their attention to
rabbits developed hair balls in their stomachs and died ; only those that
varied their diet with birds survived.

The introduction of the fox, and its i apid spread of late years I'ight into
the interior of Australia, was another destructive agent in the diminution
of bird life. All the ground-nesting birds of the plains, such as plovers,
bustards, ducks and quail, are at the mercy of the night-prowling fox, while
in the forest the lyre-bird, sci-ub-turkey and many other birds are threatened
with extinction.

Turning to the introduced birds we are faced with other serious problems.
The ubiquitous sparrow follows the railway lines into the country and sets up
in com{)etition with our useful native birds. Before they were so numerous
in England, house-martins were found in every ^■illage and kept down many
insect pests, but the sparrow, taking possession of their nests and otherwise
persecuting them, has driven them out of many of their old haunts during
the last few years. The common starling is another bird that thrives and
multiplies wherever it tinds suitable surrounch'ngs ; one has only to see the
enormous flocks in New England and on the Liverpool Plains to understand
how they have must have altered the conditions of native bird life. They,
like the sparrow, follow the railway lines into the country, and I have seen
them at Byrock and other western towns quite fitting into their new
surroundings. Not only do they devour large quantities of the natural food
supplies of our native birds, but they nest in hollow trees and interfere with
the local birds. It is a well-known fact that in England they often raid
dovecots and eat the pigeons' eggs. Both in size and cunning they are
superior to the sparrow and more diflicult to trap or shoot.

The time has gone by when stockowners considered every native bird or
animal that ate grass or trampled the herbage, a pest and an enemy in
competition with sheep and cattle, and that by destroying them as such they
civilised the country. We have learnt much in the last decade, and in the
rising generation are many young landowners who, profiting by the educa-
tional facilities won for them by their pioneer fathers, and a perhaps wider
outlook, are interesting themselves in the fauna and flora of their native
land and co-operating with nature lovers in their preservation. There are
many Australian estates to-day where nobody is allowed to shoot or hunt,
and these are virtually private sanctuaries ; others have been actually dedi-
cated with the approval of the State authorities. IVlany other landowners
need only to have the facts brought under their notice to induce them to
follow suit. The zoological and field naturalists' societies now include many
country members, and each one becomes an agent for good in his own
district. Surely there is room in this broad land for all of us — man, beast,

SOME USEFUL AUSTFALIAN BIRDS. 19

bird, and tiny bush ally ! I do not for a moment suggest that the man on>
the land is not entitled to protect his crops of field or garden, but there
are thousands of square miles of forest, plain, swamp, lake, and mountain in
Australia, where wild creatures do no harm, but add to the beauty of nature.
It should be our aim to stop all wanton destruction in such places, but such
an aim can only be achieved by so educating our people that they appreciate
the value, the interest, and the beauty to be discovered in the little creatures
of the fields.

The Classification Adopted in this Work.

In order that the descriptions of our birds in the following pages may be
more convenient, a classification consisting of three main sections, according
to the environment of the bird, has been adopted, as follows : —

Section I.^ — -Birds of the Garden, Orchard, and Fields

Section II. — Bix-ds of the Forests and Brushes.

Section III. — Birds of the Inland Plains, Swamps, Open Forests, and
Scrubs.

Obviously these sections must overlap somewhat. For example, some
birds found in the coastal forests of New South Wales maj' also be found in
the suburban gardens of Sydney, or again others may be found equally at
home in the box forests of the western plains. Where this is the case, the
bird is described under one or other of the headings, and reference is made
in the text to its range.

20 SOME USEFUL AU ST RATA AX BIRDS.

SECTION I.

Birds of the Garden, Orchard and Field*

The birds included ia this diasion may alsa be classed under the heading
" semi-domesticated " ; they come from the ranks of the second and some-
times oven the third section. This section includes not only the birds
of the the suburban gardens of .Sydney and the orchards of the County of
Cumberland, but those of gardens, orchards, and fields all over Australia.
The description of a number of birds such as the Cobler's-awl or Spine-bill
(Acanlhorhynchuus tenuirostris) and other honey-eaters that are garden
visitants, is prohibited by exigencies of space.

The question of the value of the common introduced birds such as the
sparrow is an open one. Gurney, in his work on the common sparrow,
states that they destroy £770,000 worth of food annually in Great Britain,
while Captain White has recently stated that they do an immense amount
of good in devouring the seeds of weeds. The Sydney gardener certainly
finds them a very destructive pest amongst his fruit and vegetables, eating
far more than they save from the noxious insects they at other times devour.
The starling, another garden bird, chiefly lives at the expense of the fowls in
the suburban chicken yards ; and the claims made by landowners who have
been recklessly spreading them on the western sheep stations under the
impression that they catch blowflies, are only bringing another useless
omnivorous bird to compete for the food of our more useful native birds.
The dainty introduced doves do no harm at present ; but it would be quite
possible for them to increase in such numbers as to become a seed pest. The
common English Ring-dove is at times a very serious pest to the pea crops
in Great Britain.

The birds dealt with under our first section are as follows : —

Welcome Swallow (Hirundo neoxena). Yellow-rumped Tit
Fairy Martin {Petrochelidon ariel). {Acanthiza chrysorrhoa).

Willie-wagtail {Rhipadura tricolor). White-browed Wood-swallow
Jacky-winter {Microecafuscinana). {Artamus superciliosus).

Grinder {Sisura inquieta). Masked Wood-swallow
Magpie-lark {GralUna picata). {Artamus peisonatus).

Magpie {Gymnorhina tibicen). Red-capped 'Robin {Petroeca goodenovii) .

Silver-eye {Zosterops ccerulescens). Scarlet-breasted Robin {Petroeca leggii).

Ground Lark {Anthus australis). Flame- breasted Robin
'Bronze Cnckoo {Chalcococcyxplagosus). {Petroeca phoenicea). ,

Fan tailed Cuckoo Miner or Soldier-bird

{Cacomantls flabelliformis). {Myzantha garrula).

Blue Wren {Malurus cyamus). Laughing-jackass {Dacelo gigas).

Insectivorous Birds of Neav South Wales.

WELCOME SWALLOW."

Eirundo neoxena, Gould.

\

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

" FAIRY MARTIN."

Petrochelidon arid, Gould.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 21

The Welcome Swallow {Hirundo neoxena Gould).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 107, No. 53 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 120, No. 238.

The members of the swallow family all the world over have been studied
on account of their semi domestic habits, their numbers, their curious nesting
tiabits, and their habit of regularly migrating from the cold lands at the
approach of winter to follow the summer.

Following the rule of the European swallows, our birds migrate and
travel from the northern parts of Australia to reach Tasmania about the end
of September ; after rearing two broods they leave that island for the main-
land in March. I have noted them about this period in north-western
Victoria, gathering together in great flocks and camping at night in the
lignum swamps for some days before they started on their return north-
ward.

In the northern parts of New South "Wales and Queensland, though some
of the swallows migrate, there are always a number that remain all through
the year, as long as food supplies are plentiful. In the north and north-
western districts the swallows are often nesting right up to the end of the
year. They place their nests under iron roofs and low sheds, and when a
heat wave comes along, with a hot wind and a shade temperature of over
100 deg., hundreds of young swallows die in the nests.

The bowl-shaped nest is composed of pellets of clay strengthened with bits
of grass, and forms a solid mud nest which is lined with feathers, wool, hair,
and other soft materials ; it contains from three to five glossy, white eggs,
speckled and spotted with reddish-brown and slate-grey, thickest upon the
larger end.

These nests are placed in all kinds of curious situations ; the reader is
referred to Campbell's ''Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds" for an account
of the many places where they have been recorded. They are usually
•constructed against a wall or cliff ; but, with the advance of civilisation,
the birds have adapted themselves to their surroundings and now place
them under bridges, along the rafters of woolsheds and stables, and under
the shelter of the verandah of country and suburban houses. They give a
certain amount of trouble to the housewife by the mess and litter they make.
In the country it is often claimed that their presence brings snakes about,
and it is not an uncommon thing to see strings and paper or empty bottles
suspended along the underside of the homestead verandah to discourage
the swallows. In spite of this, their cheerful, happy chirping notes, and their
dainty ways as they rest on fence, clothes line, or telephone wires, endear
them to everybody, and few persons would kill a swallow — " it would be
unlucky," some people will tell you.

The immense value of the flocks of swallows from an insectivorous point
of view, is hard to estimate, but they play a very important part in keeping
down the swarms of mosquitos, gnats, and other pests, and therefore should
be most carefully protected.

22 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

We have a second species of swallow, the White-backed Swallow [Chera-
monoa leucostere'im), which is non-mi<^ratory and seldom goes in flocks of more
than ten or twenty. It hawks for insects much higher in the air than the
Welcome Swallow, though sometimes it flies with the latter. It also has-
very distinct nesting habits, drilling small holes into sandy banks, and
excavating a small chamber at the end. This it lines with leaves and grass,
before depositing its eggs.

The Fairy Martin (Petrochelidon anel Gould).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 113, No. 56 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 121, No. 241.

Like the Welcome Swallow, this beautiful little bird is migratory. It
arrives in the south about August, rears two broods, and leaves for the north
in February or March. A remarkable characteristic of this little martin is
its habit of shunning the coast, and not nesting about the coastal towns.
The nearest point to Sydney at which I have seen the nests of these
birds is the old church at Richmond, which always has a fine community o£
nests. They are also plentiful about Maitland.

The nests are often packed so close together, under the shelter of over-
hanging rocks or the eaves of houses, that they lose their regular shape and are
built into each other, but the regular spout-like neck always projects outward..
On account of the shape of their nests the birds are often called Bottle-nest
Swallows. Sometimes the nests are built in the cavities of hollow or decayed
trees, or under the high river banks. It is remarkable what a large amount
of clay is used by such a small bird to construct each nest. According to
Gould, a number of birds often work together in building, some bringing the
supplies of clay pellets, others receiving them and moulding the nest. The
nest is deeply lined with feathers and other soft material, and contains four or
five eggs — some pure-white, and others spotted with red. The nests of this
bird often contain a small circular or oval flattened tick, I'elated to the fowl
tick. Argils lagenoplastes.

The Tree Swallow, which Gould placed in the genus Hylochelidon, is now
placed in the same genus as the Fairy Martin, and known as Petrochelidon
nigricans. It is a very common visitor as far south as Hobart in the summer
months ; it " nests " in holes in trees, making actually no nest, but placing,
its eggs on the soft decayed wood.

The Jacky- winter {Micrceca fascinans Latham).

(lould'a Handbiok, vol. I, p. 258, No. 149 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 121, No 242.
This popular name sticks to this little bird, although his more accurate
designation would be the Brown Flycatcher. He is one of the most active
little flycatchers, darting from a twig or post to snap up any small moth, beetle,
or other insect flying carelessly by, or picking up some small creature
incautiously showing itself on the ground. His purpose accomplished, he flies

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

" JACKY WINTER."

MICECECA FASCINANS, Lath.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

"SCISSORS GRINDER."

SISURA INQUIETA, Lath.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 23

back chattering to his resting place, frequently flirting his tail backwards
and forwards to show the outer white feathers that contrast with his uniform,
dull-brown tints.

This little bird has a wide range over the greater portion of New South
Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Queensland. It makes a small, shallow
nest of fine grass, matted together with spiders' web, and ornamented with
bits of bark and lichen. The nest is usually placed at the end of a
horizontal branch, and contains two (rarely three) greyish-blue eggs, blotched
with reddish-brown and purple. The note of this bird, particularly when
busy or excited, is translated by our school children as "Peter, Peter," so
that he is sometimes called after his call note, instead of Jacky-winter.
Some half-dozen other common names indicate his popularity with the
children.

The Grinder or Restless Fiycatcher {Sisura inquieta, Latham).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 2i6, No. 141 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 125, No. 259.

This busy and fussy flycatcher might at first sight be taken for the Willie-
wagtail, but observation of the two together would soon make plain a difference.
The Grinder is more slender in form, with the whole of the under surface
right to the beak, white, while the throat of the Willie-wagtail is black ;
the whole of the former's upper surface is, too, a shining glossy black, and
when hovering and emitting its harsh grinding note it erects the feathers on
its head into a regular crest. The female is not so richly tinted, her wings
a,nd sides being of a rusty-brown.

About a house, these birds often hover for some time in front of a window,
uttering their harsh cry. At a station homestead a lady told me that if she
left her bedroom window open, one used to come regularly into the room and
hover in front of the looking-glass on the dressing table, chattering away at
his OM;-n reflection. This species has a wide range over the greater part of
Australia with the exception of the tropical north, and frequents all classes of
country ; it is a very active hunter of small insects, catching its food on the
ground, or hovering in the air with a rapid motion of the wings like one of
our wind-hover hawks. Specimens shot in the Trangie district in the early
summer were found to have been feeding upon blow-flies belonging to the
yellow and green varieties. Their stomachs were packed with the remains.

The Grinder's usual note is a loud harsh call (from which it gets its popular
name of Grinder or Scissors-grinder), but it sometimes emits a loud, clear
whistle. When hovering it comes down vexy quickly to the ground to
pick up any stray insect. Gilbert recorded it as plentiful in Western Aus-
tralia, where it frequented the mangroves and scrubs, making, while feeding
on the ground, a call like the croak of a frog. It builds a small cup-shaped
nest composed of stringy-bark fibre and cobwebs mixed together, and closely
lined. The nest contains a pair of bluish-white eggs, blotched and spotted
a\\ over with olive and greyish-brown.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The Willie-wagtail [Rhipadwa tricolor Viellot).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 238, No. 134 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 125, No. 256.

While this bird is preening himself in the morning sun his restless blaclc
tail is constantly on the wag ; hence his popular name of Willie-wagtail. He
is not, however, a true wagtail ; and, though he .somewhat resemhles the-
pied-wagtails of Eux'ope in outward appearance and coloration, he is pro-
perly a flycatcher, flirting his tail from side to side instead of wagging up
and down — the orthodox direction. In the inland districts he is well-knowni
under the name of Shepherd's Companion, because there are few .shepherd's:
huts in the west where you will not find a pair of these birds. There are
always a few about every home station, and they are regular visitors in our
suburban gardens and parks. Willie-wagtail is one of the few restless, day-
flying birds that talks all through the night, and his chattering note, which
the bush children translate as " sweet pretty creature," adds another popular
name to this list. He is properly known as the Black-and-white Fantail.

This little bird has a wide range over the whole of Australia, extending
into New Guinea, Aru Islands, Solomon Islands, and New Ireland. He i»
one of our most active insectivorous birds, following sheep about when feed-
ing, and snapping up the moths, flies, and other small insects that the flock
disturbs, hopping on and off the backs of hoi'ses and cattle (which he uses as
stations of observation for moving insects) and picking the parasites and fliesi
that infest the animals' skin. In the garden he is just as busy ; while
he is also one of the few native birds that I have observed hunting round
dead animals for blow-flies. Like many of their group, these birds are dainty
artificers, constructing a beautiful, soft, cup-shaped nest composed of grass^
bits of bark, wool, hair, and any other suitable material they come across..
This mass is delicately woven into a soft-felted mass, and bound all over and
around with spiders' web, so that when the labours of the builders are finished
the nest is so neatly attached to its limb that it has no angles or sharp out-
lines. Indeed, it blends into the surroundings so completely that the casual
observer would scarcely suspect it was a nest, and would pass it quite closely
under the impression that it was simply a natural excrescence on the tree's
limb. The nest is very often placed on a dead limb standing out from a
living tree, frequently .so low that one can see the mother snuggled down
with the tip of her tail and her beak extending beyond the rim of the nest.

The eggs are four in number, oval, and broadly rounded at one end ; they
are of dull yellowish- white, marked and spotted with an olive and grey band
round the upper half. Campbell confirms the statement that the Willie-
wagtail sometimes rears three broods of nestlings in a season — so they cer-
tainly ought to be considered " good Australians."

For their size the birds are good fighters, and will drive larger ones away
from their nests. On a lawn in the Botanic Gardens last summer I
watched one attack a stray cat that crawled out from some bushes to

iNsiiCTivoRors BruDs of Nkw South Wales.

" WILLIE WAGTAIL."

EHIPIDUEA TEICOLOE, Vieill.

I^'SECTIvoROus Birds of New South Wales.

*'PEE=WEE."

Grallina picata. Lath.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 25

get some remnants of a lunch on the grass. The little bird flew over him
chattering all the time, and finally drove him back into the shelter of the
bushes.

The Victorian Naturalist has several records of the Pallid Cuckoo placing
her egg in the nest of this bird, and using her as a foster-mother. Dr. '
Bennett, in his " Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia " (p. 208), gives a
wood-cut showing a Fantailed Flycatcher feeding a young Bronze Cuckoo.
He says : " It was ludicrous to observe the large and apparently well-fed
bird filling up with its corpulent body the entire nest, receiving daily the
sustenance intended for several young flycatchers ; and we could imagine
underneath the nest the skeletons of the former tenants sacrificed to the
rearing of this parasitical cuckoo."

Th3 Magpie-lark (GralUna jncata Latham).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, page 118, No. 123 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 148, No. 314.
There is not a more dainty or a more fearless grass-hunting bird than the
Magpie-lark. It is cosmopolitan in its range. All over Australia, wherever
fresh water is found and there is timber, you will hear the plaintive call of
the Pied Grallina or Magpie-lark — a bird note that has led to its gaining also
the name of Pee-weet, which we hope, because of its application to a
well-known European sea-shore bird, will be dropped for the more original
name.

These birds are not uncommonly seen in our suburban gardens hunting
•over the lawns for grass insects, and if it were not for that curse of bird
life, the domestic cat, they would soon increase in numbers The flight
of the Magpie-lark is undulating, and as she settles down on roof or grass
she sends forth her clear note " pee-weet," repeated several times. Coming to
a water-hole to drink or hunt for insects she has a dainty mincing strut
which is very characteristic. At Warrah Experimental Station I was
interested in watching a Magpie-lark that spends all its spare time resting
on a spout and pecking at the oflice window. The manager said that
this had been going on for three years ; and that, viewed from the
•outside, the bird could see its reflection in the sheet of glass — evidently the
Attraction.

There seems to be no valid reason why some birds, delicate and graceful,
should adopt the habit of plasterers, and make solid large nests of mud, such
as those of the swallows, martins, Black-magpies, and our Magpie-lark. The
nest is generally built on a stout stem of a gum-tree adjacent to the water,
well up from the ground and out of reach of enemies ; but she often builds
some distance away from water, and I once saw a nest on an orna-
mental gum-tree on the main street of Moree, in quite an exposed position.
The nest is,shaped like a round basin ; it has a solid base and well-built sides,
and is lined inside with grass and feathers on which are laid three, four,
or sometimes five pyriform pearly-white eggs marked with a mottled.

26 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

band of purple, red, and pink of various shades around the upper half.
According to Campbell, the Pallid Cuckoo sometimes adopts the Magpie-lark
as a mother for her baby and places her egg in the nest. When hawks and
Butcher-birds were plentiful in the Murray swamps of norch-western Victoria,,
a Aery large percentage of the young nestlings of the Magpie-larks were
destroyed by these carniverous birds; while the big lizards (" gohannas "^
accounted for many more. With the passing of these enemies, and with the
adaptation of these birds to their surroundings, their numbers are increasing
in all suitable localities. When the great wheat stacks were built at White
Bay and Enfield, it was remarkable how many Magpie-larks were attracted
to these localities, the swarms of insects breeding from the wheat being the
attraction. The deserted nests of these birds are often occupied later in the
season, and after they have reared their broods, by the wood-swallows,.
Graucalus, and other birds.

The Magpie-lark, though it will sometimes pick up bits of maize and grain
in the chicken yard, is almost entirely insectivorous in its food. Under
normal conditions, ants, small ground beetles, and moth larvae form a con-
siderable portion of its diet. When the locust plagues appear, and the young^
are in the nest, the birds have a busy time. I once watched a pair of
Magpie-larks bring forty well-grown grasshoppers to their lusty babies in
half an hour. This bird is also recorded to be a formidable enemy of the
fresh-water snail that is the intermediate host of the liver fluke of sheep, and
for this work alone it should have the protection of all stockowners. The
males and females can be easily distinguished from each other by the white
face of the female and the black face of her mate.

The Magpie {GymnorJnna tibicin, Latham).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 175, No. 92 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 149, No. 316.

According to ornithologists there are four distinct species of magpies ;
according to the bouk they are " Piping Crow-shrikes," yet the man in
the bush knows them all as magf)ies. There is one species restricted to
Tasmania, another to south-western Australia, and two are found in the
eastern States. Campbell considers that the White-backed Magpie
(Gymnorhina leuconata Grey) is more a coastal bird in South Australia and
Victoria, and that it "tapers out" in the inland districts, where the Black-
backed Magpie is the most common. Our common species under review
ranges over Victoria, South Australia, New South Wales, and Queensland,,
while the white-backed species does not extend into Queenftland.

The magpies increase in number in areas where there are cultivation pad-
docks and the land is tilled. Inland, they are scantily scattered over the
land in pairs or small families along the rivers and about the homesteads.
In spite of the statement that rabbit-poisoning has killed out cur mag-
pies, let one go through the New England country when the ploughmen are
at work and he will see dozens of them hunting over the freshly turned soil }

*v

\^

Insectivorous Birds of I^ew South Wales.

"MAGPIE."

Gymnorhina tihicen. Lath.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 27

indeed, he will see them in suitable hunting grounds in many districts— such
as, for instance, the Liverpool Plains. The magpie is one of the most
important of our birds as an insect hunter and destroyer, hunting over
paddocks (where it turns over cowdung and sticks to get at the hidden
insects) and equally busy in the forests and farms. It is also a valuable
ally in destroying mice. During the mice plague in 1917-18 large
numbers of these bii'ds congregated in the vicinity of the wheat stacks
in the Riverina. At Lockhart I counted over a hundred, and when I
turned over bags and a swarm of sheltering mice scattered over the
yards the magpies often flew along and snapped up a mouse as he was
running. At night the magpie rests in the timber, and pours forth at day-
break its morning hymn " all's well with the world." There are few birds
in the world that can send forth such a rich carol as a family of magpies on
a summmer morning in the Australian forests, or at night a pleasanter
even-song.

The semi-domesticated magpie that comes round the homestead garden,
often contracts bad habits ; it pulls up plants and damages fruit^, and some-
times, when food is short, it goes into the cultivation paddock and pulls up the
green shoots peeping through the soil to eat the soft grain at the base. In
such cases these rogue magpies have to be driven away and — if too persistent,
- — shot.

The magpie constructs an open round bowl-shaped nest composed of sticks
bark, and twigs, lined inside with finer material, such as hair and feathers.
It is generally placed w^ell out in the fork of a stout branch of a gum tree.
The clutch of eggs varies from three to live in number ; the eggs are usually
of a blue or greenish tint, thickly mottled or marbled with pink or brownish-
red, but they are remarkable for their many changes in ground colour and
markings — very often in the same nest.

There are no more interesting birds for pets than a pair of young magpies
and none more easily fed and reared when plenty of fresh meat is available.
When domesticated, they will soon learn to follow one round, arid with their
bright eyes on the watch they will snap up every grub or earthworm turned
up in the garden soil. In the early morning it is interesting to watch one of
these birds walking along the walls and picking off all stray flies and moths
before the sun has roused them from their semi-torpid condition. During
a, visit to the New Hebrides, I was interested in noting how easy it
is to alter the balance of power in insect or bird life by the introduction
of a bird useful in its native country, into a new land under altered
conditions of life. At Ringdove Bay in the New Hebrides the planters had
imported some magpies from Sydney which roamed about the compound and
lived almost exclusively upon the small insect-eating lizards so abundant in
the islands, and which live among the foliage of the scrub trees. In
destroying these lizards they were of course doing much more harm than good.

28 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

When nesting, the old magpies are often very savage, and will fly down and
snap savagely over one's head to drive him away from the vicinity of their
nests. In captivity the dispositions of magpies are markedly dissimilar ; one
mav he quiet and friendly and will come squawking up in a very amicable
manner, while another delights in waylaying the children and attacking
their bare legs with its powerful sharp boak. A magpie under domestication
learns many curious habits — some good and some bad. After watching the
gardeners planting out seedlings he will often follow around and pull them
them up through a spirit of mischievous curiosity. One magpie I owned
imitated the cackling of a laying hen ; it used to crawl under a hedge
close to the fowl-house, and after cackling in a most perfect imitation of an
old hen, would creep away when the owner came to look for the egg, as if he
thoroughly enjoyed the joke. Some learn to whistle tunes, and others can
talk with a more or less limited vocabulary ; but in captivity one never hears
the glorious trills and piping flute-like notes of the free magpie.

The Silver-eye {Zosterops coerulescsns Latham).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 587, No. 360 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 155, No. 334.

These quaint little birds are well known in our suburban gardens, and
might almost be considered semi-domesticated, they are so tame and fearless
when hunting through the rose bushes and shrubs for aphides, small moths,,
and other soft-bodied insects. They are popularly known as Silver-eyes or
White-eyes, on account of the curious ring of small white feathers round the
eye, which gives them a rather comical but characteristic appearance. The-
Sydney schoolboy, who often clips his words, is content to call them just-
" Sivies." This species has a wide range around the Australian coast from
South Australia to Queensland, but, though occasionally recorded from inland
districts, it is only a stray visitor over the western side of the mountains.
I have seen them in Bendigo, Victoria, and they have been noted as
far north-west as the Murray. They have a wide range over Tasmania, and
are established in New Zealand, where they were first noticed in 1856. There
is some question as to whether they are indigenous, or emigrants from
Australia, but as they are also common in Fiji, New Caledonia, and the New
Hebrides, they may be natives of all these islands.

A second species, Zosterops gouldi, which takes the place of the species-
common in Western Australia, is known as the Grape-bird or Fig-bird,
Though an insectivorous bird all through the winter months and early
summer when insect pests are at their worst, the Silver-eye, like a number oi
other honey-suckers belonging to the family Meliphagidce, has adapted its
habits to its surroundings, and finds its curious brush-tipped tongue (which
should be used for brushing up the honey on the flowers of the honey-suckles
and other native flowering shrubs) admirably adapted, in conjunction with its
sharp-pointed beak, for sucking up the juices of grapes, persimmons, figs, and
other dead-ripe fruit. Though sometimes spoken of as the " blight bird," oi

■^Jxs hi) J w*>^

Insectivorous Birds op New South Wales.

"THE WHITE EYE OR SILVER EYE."

Zosterops coerulescens.

'^

^

<

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 29

account of its aphis-eating habits, it is also well known as a pest in summer
when, gathei-erl together in little flocks of half a dozen or more, it appears
among our grape-vines.

One of my earliest recollections of bird life is, when a very small boy,
seeing my father, in an orchard near Melbourne, catch a Silver-eye in a
large ripe pear, which it had with its friends nearly hollowed out on the tree.

The Silver-eye is one of the smallest of the honey-eaters, and is of a general
olive-green colour, the back tinted with dark grey and the under surface lighter
coloured ; it is short and somewhat thick-set in form, and has a short whistle-
like cry, by which its presence can be easily located, when flitting through the
bushes. It forms a rounded cup-shaped nest, composed of grass, wool, and
such-like material in any low bush, in which it lays three delicate pale-blue
eggs, and it is not uncommon to find the speckled egg of the cuckoo also in
the nest.

The Silver-eye must be included in any list of insectivorous birds, on
account of the valuable work it does in destroying countless numbers of
minute insect pests, but at the same time we must allow that in a trellis of
unsheltered grape-vines he is a cunning little thief, and can do a considerable
amount of damage.

The Ground Lark [Anthus australis Vig. and Horsf.)

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 392, No. 240 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 176, No. 370.

This common, and active little Ijrown bird is frequently seen flying up from
the I'oadside, running over the open grass lands, taking short flights or resting
in the shade of a tussock of grass. If disturbed when on the nest, it slips
away through the grass, pretending it has a damaged wing or leg, and goes
through all kinds of tricks to lead the intruder away from its home. The nest is
a well-built, circular, cup-shaped structure comprised of dead grass, lined
with hair or feathers, placed in a depression in the ground among the grass.
The clutch consists of three or four greyish or stone-coloured eggs, spotted
and splashed with brown. The nest and eggs match and blend with the
surroundings so well that, unless you stumble on one accidentally before the
bird has time to get away, you are not likely to find the ground-larks at home.

Though spending most of her time on the ground, hunting for all kinds of
ground insects such as beetles, moth larvse, ants, and grubs, the Ground Lark
has the habit of frequently flying up in the air, trilling out her delicate lark,
like notes, both as she is rising and as she floats in the air. Though of a
uniform plain, dull-brown colour, her plumage is admirably adapted for
protective coloration against the many enemies that fly above all ground-
dwelling birds. Her friendly, fearless habits of running along only a few
yards away will always make her a popular and noticeable bird with our
bush lovers.

The Ground Lark is sometimes called the Australian Pipet. It ranges all
over Australia and Tasmania.

30 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The Bronze Cuckoo [Chalcococcyx (Lamprococcyx) pJagosus].

Gould's Handbook, vol. I. p. 623, No. 3S3 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. HI, No. 235.

Australia has a number of species of cuckoo in her bird fauna,
but most of them are shy, retiring biids that are seldom noticed by the
casual observer.

This pretty little cuckoo is one of the best known of the family, from its
habit of coming into our gardens and orchards looking for insects. It is a
great favourite with vine-growers, because it is one of the very few birds
that will eat the vine-moth caterpillar { Agar ista glycine), which often does
so much damage to the foliage and young grapes in the early part of the
season.

It is not uncommon about the suburban gardens near Sydney, but is
a quiet, shy bird, flitting about among tlie vines and trees hunting for
insects, seldom when feeding giving its gentle whistle-like call note.
AVlieelwright, author of the " Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist," published
in 18G1, gives many notes on the birds in Victoria, and says : " The Bronze
Cuckoos were very common in the honeysuckle scrub ; they have a very loud
cry for their size, resembling that of the English wryneck." The female
has the true cuckoo instinct of finding a foster-mother for her offspring, and,
laying aside all motherly feeliiigs, hunts round until she finds the nest of
either the little Blue Wren or the Silver-eye in which she places her olive-
green eggs, and flies away with no family cares to worry lier.

Like many of the other cuckoos, however, she has a large list of other
small birds that she favours with her eggs. Campbell says, " She usually
chooses the covered-in nests of the Acanthtzae (tits) tribe, but other species
of builders of dome-shaped or secluded nests are chosen," and he gives a I'st
of twenty-seven small birds, of various families, in the nests of which this
cuckoo's eggs have been recorded.

In this bird the .scientific, as well as ttie popular, name is well chosen, as
the generic name is composed of two Greek words {Lanipro and coccyx), the
first meaning shining and the second a cuckoo ; it Iihs been recently
placed in the allied genus Chalcococcyx, but is better known under the
old name.

In the Bronze Cuckoo we have a very friendly and useful bird in our
gardens and orchards, but its value is discounted to a great extent by the
fact that it is a parasite in the nests of so many otlier useful little birds.

The Fantailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis flahelliformis Latham).

Goulds Handbook, vol. II, p. 568, No. 451 ; Leich's Bird Book, p. 109, No. 230.

This appears to have been one of the first Australian cuckoos to attract the
attention of the early settlers in the bush. It was called the Lesser Cuckoo, to
distinguish it from the Pallid Cuckoo {Cuculus pallidus), which was known
as the Greater Cuckoo. It must also have been a common bird known to
collectors, for it had been described under eight different scientific names at

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

"THE BRONZE CUCKOO."

Chalcococxijx {Lamprococcyx) ji^cgosus.
Young, male and female.

^^^

^..j-^;'^fCs

'^■

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

" FAN=TAILED CUCKOO. "

Gacomantis flahelJifonnis, Latham.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 31

the time when Gould published his handbook. This cuckoo is a migratory
species ia the southern portion of Australia ; it arrives in Tasmania in Sep-
tember, returning to the mainland in the following January. Like all the
members of the group, it is a solitary bird of a retiring nature. It does not
come much into the open country, and if it were not for its loud call-note it
would easily escape observation.

Campbell gives a list of eighteen different birds in whose nests the white
freckled egg of this cuckoo has been collected, and they include tits, wrens,^
honey-eaters, robins, wood-swallows, and rock-warblers, most of which form
domed or covered nests. Two different species of cuckoos have been recorded
as laying their eggs in the same tit's nest. For a long time the naturalists
were unable to decide how the cuckoo managed to lay her egg in such a small
nest as that which she usually selected. Careful field observations have
proved that after laying her egg upon the grass, the cuckoo watches her
opportunity when the mother bird leaves her nest, to cuddle her egg up
between the bill and the breast, and flying upward push it into the freshly
built nest. Why such birds acquired these lazy parasitic habits it is very
hard to understand, especially as we have in the Coucal a closely related
bird that builds a large nest of her own and rears her own nestlings. Among
the remarkable cuckoos is the Channel-bill (Scythrops novce-hollandicB), a
large bird ranging all over Australia to Tasmania, and also found in Nev»^
Guinea. She adopts the crow, and some of the larger shrikes, as foster-
mothers for her offspring.

The Blue Wren {Malurus cyanens Ellis).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 317, No. 185 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 144, No. 30.

Though this dainty little bird has been long known under the name t)f
Malurus cyaneus, in Leach's book the specific name of Cyanochlamys is attached
to it. This seems a great pity, for Leach's book was primarily intended for
bird lovers and school children, and its author might have used the old name
of Cyaneus, even if not quite the latest in modern classification.

It was figured and described in White's "Voyage to New South Wales "
as the Superb-warbler. This name still sticks to it, though it has been
gradually superseded by the more popular one of Blue Wren, which I hope
in time to see universally adopted by the children of Australia, instead
of Cocktail — a name by which it is often known in New South Wales, but
which has nothing to lecommend it in comparison with our typical and
euphonious preference. Dr. Bennett, in his " Gatherings of a Naturalist in.
Australia" (1860), calls it the Purple- warbler, but I have not seen this most
unsuitable name repeated by modern writers. It is certainly not a purple
wren.

The wrens are well represented in Australia by sixteen species. They
comprise some of our most beautiful little birds, usually moving about in
small communities, and being found in all classes of country, from our

32 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

suburban gardens to the far western scrubs ; indeed, wherever there is water,
■one or more species may be found. The best place to study the Blue Wren is
in a sheltered suburban garden ; here a day seldom passes without a little
family flitting and creeping along through the trellis and shrubs, and hopping
over the lawns in search of tiny moths, aphids, scale, and the many forms of
soft-bodied insects that infest our garden plants. " The difference in colour of
the brilliant blue and black adult cock bird, the dull-coloured female, and the
young birds, is well defined. For a short time, when he is moulting, the
cock bird loses much of his showy appearance, but it is regained with his
new coat. It is a well-established fact that the cock Blue Wren is a feathered
mormon, and entertains a retinue of wives.

The nest of the Blue Wren is dome-shaped, with a small rounded hole on
its side. It is usually composed of grass lined with hair, bits of wool, or
feathers, and is placed in a low bush or tuft of grass. The eggs, usually four
in number, are a delicate pink, and are banded on the larger end with
reddish-brown spots.

The Yellow-rumped Tit {Acmthiza ckrysorrhoa).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 374, No. 229 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 143, No. 293.
The Yellow-rumped Tit is a typical representative of the genus
Acanthiza, which contains twelve species peculiar to Australia. It is known
as the Tomtit to many school children, but in Tasmania is popularly known
as the Yellow-tail. It ranges over the greater part of Australia, usually
^oing in small flocks, flying low, and giving a low chirping cry.

This little bird has the remarkable habit of constructing a double house,
for on the top of its somewhat loosely woven oval structure it builds a
circular rimmed dish like a second shallow nest. Naturalists have never
«iven any satisfactory reason for this peculiar departure from the usual oval
nest, but it has been suggested that it is a resting-place for the male bird,
and perhaps for the mother bird when off duty.

The eggs, usually four in number, are somewhat elongate, pure-white, but
sometimes slightly spotted. Campbell and other observers have recorded
that these little birds have the curious habit of frequently building their nests
beneath the larger nests of magpies, crows, and hawks. The little Bronze
Cuckoo often imposes hqr eggs upon the Tomtit, and selects her comfortable
nest as the home for her parasitic fledgling. These dainty little birds,
though insignificant in size, are plentiful in gardens where they are not
molested. As they are always at work, they must save a very large number
of flowering plants from the smaller plant-infesting insects.

This is the same bird as that referred to as the " Yellow-rumped Thorn-
bill " {Geobasileus chrysorrhous) in the list of birds protected in New South
Wales, referred to on page 29 of the Agricultural Gazette, January, 1915.

About one-half natural size.

Insectivorous Birds of 'New South Wales.
" YELLOW=RUMPED TIT."

Acanth iza ch rysorrli oa.

iNSECTIVOltOUS iJlRDS OF NeW SoUTH WaLES.

• WHITE=BROWED WOOD SWALLOW."

Artamus superciliosus, Gould.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 33

White-browed Wood-swallow [Artamus superciliosus Gould).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 152, No. 79 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 147, No. 311.

The early naturalists considered that the wood-swallows were related to
the thrushes, and Latham called our commonest species the Sordid-thrush.
Jerdon, studying the Indian forms, characterised them as swallow-shrikes ;
but the popular name, wood-swallow, adopted by Gould, seems to define them
more accurately for the bush naturalist, and has been universally adopted in
Australia. These birds are also known locally as Blue-martins or Blue-
birds, though they are not related to either the swallow or the martin, and
only resemble them in their active gregarious habits, often congregating in
immense flocks before they separate to nest. The home of the members of
the genus Artamus is India, the Malay Archipelago, Australia, and the
Pacific Islands. Nine species are described from Australia ; some of these
remain on the continent all the year round, while others are migratory in
their habits, crossing over to New Guinea before the winter sets in, and
returning to us at the fall of the year. On this account this and other species
are also popularly known as Summer-birds, coming southward into New South
Wales and Victoria, where they settle down and nest in November and
December.

The species now described is one of the most elegant in form and colora-
tion of all the family. It is closely related to the more common wood-
swallow, Artamus sordidus ; the latter is also about the size of a sparrow, but
the whole of the plumage of its body is grey, it lacks the white brow and
rich chestnut breast of the former, and its wings and tail are bluish-black.
Though so distinctive in coloration and markings, naturalists consider these
two species closely allied, for they often mingle together in flocks and
nest in the same trees, while there are several authentic records of them
mating together.

As insect destroyers, the wood-swallows play a very important part in
keeping in check (and in some cases completely destroying) the armies of
■cut-worms and swarms of locusts (grasshoppers) that so often infest crops and
grass in early summer. In the spi'ing of 1919 in the Hunter River district,
numbers of locusts swarmed out in the paddocks, but thousands of wood-
swallows arrived from the north and attacked the locusts while in the hopper
stage so vigorously that scarcely an insect escaped to reach the perfect flying
stage. I visited the district at the end of November, 1919, and found the
birds nesting all round the vineyards in the low scrub, each nest with its
complement of well-feathered nestlings.

Both the White-browed and the Sordid Wood-swallows range all over
eastern, southern, and north-western Australia ; and though migratory as a
general rule, odd specimens may be found well south all the year round.
They are not very particular about their nests, and often take possession of
the deserted nests of other birds such as the Magpie-lark, re-lining their
t 97615— B

34 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

second-hand homes with fresh feathers and grass. Their own nests are
loosely constructed with small twigs, fibrous roots and grass, and are placed
in a very haphazard way in the fork of a low bush or gum sapling. The
eggs are white, spotted and marked with brown, and vary from two to six.
in number.

Masked Wood-swallow {Artamus personatus).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 150, No. 78 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 147, No. 312.

The Masked Wood-swallow is recorded from all parts of Australia, except'
the far west and the Northern Territory ; it usually appears in small flocks
towards the early part of October to nest in New South Wales. It is a very
active bird and is usually seen in flocks that are small compared with those
of the last-described species, darting in and out among the trees, with the flight
of a swallow and the squeaky chirp of a sparrow. At night, when roosting on a
bare branch, these birds have the curious habit possessed by some of the
finches, of resting close together in a row, their black throats and light-
coloured bodies forming a marked contrast in the bunch.

The nest of this wood-swallow is a very poorly constructed affair, chiefly
composed of grass, loosely woven together, stuck in the fork of a branch,,
with hardly any attempt at concealment. The clutch consists of from two
to three white eggs, spotted and splashed with brown. An insectivorous
bird, the Masked Wood-swallow plays a useful part in the garden, paddock,,
and the forest. Bee-farmers sometimes complain that wood-swallows — and
this species in particular — are finding out that the domestic honey-bees are
good food and are easily caught ; and it is easily understood how much
damage can be done by the advent of a flock of wood-swallows among the
slow-flying bees. If a few are .shot, however, they will soon move on, and
their usefulness much outweighs the eflFect of their bad habit.

The Red-capped Robin {Petroeca c^oodenovii Vig. and Horsf.).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 280, No. 166 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 123, No. 248.
This is one of the smallest and most beautiful I'obin red-breasts, and has
sweet song notes like that of the English robin ; it has a wide distribution,
being found all over Australia, except in the far north. It frequents open
forest and lightly timbered plains, and is just as much at home in the garden
as in the mallee gum scrub or the open glades of the interior. Wherever
there is bright sunlight and water you may meet this robin.

There are seven species of robins listed in the genus Petroeca, and all have
similar nesting habits. They are truly insectivorous, living chiefly upon small
moths, flies, and other insects that they frequently capture on the wing. The
dull-coloured females of several species are common residents of our gardens,,
where they become very tame. From the vantage point ol fence or tree

•'^

'x>

Slig-htly less than hiilf-size.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.
"THE MASKED WOOD-SWALLOW."

Artamus personatus.

E-i

O
CO

:^

o

m
Q
K

m
o

K
O

>

H
O
W

33
O
a?

a,

Q
as

iNSECTIVOKOUrt BlIiDS OF NeW SOUTH WaLEs

" SCARLET=BREASTED ROBIN."

PETUGECA LEGGII, Shorpe.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 35

they scan the neighbourhood for flitting moth or creeping insect, returning
after each successful dart to their observation post to flirt their tails in
characteristic robin fashion. This bird, forms a typical dainty cup-
shaped nest of soft bark and grass, lined with fur, feathers, wool, or hair.
When firmly fixed in the fork of a tree and coated on the outside with
spiders' web, bits of bark, and lichens, it blends with the surrounding stems
in a perfect outline. The eggs are round, pale green, and finely spotted
round the apex with brown ; they vary in number from two to four.

The Scarlet-breasted Robin [Petmca leggii Sharpe).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 279, No. 165 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 122, No. 244.

The scarlet-breasted Robin is common in Tasmania, and extends its range
over the greater part of the eastern and southern portion of the mainland,
but is not found in Western Australia or northern Queensland. It is an
attractive little red-breast with the whole of the upper surface and head
black, except for a white patch on the forehead and bands of the same colour
on the wings ; its breast is a rich red, and from the quality of this colour
and by its large white top-knot this species is easily distinguished from the
other two illustrated, ft makes a cup-shaped nest of scraps of bark bound
up with other fibre, matted together with spiders' web and lined with soft
bark, fur, or feathers — -"in the fern-tree gullies of Gippsland with the soft
downy fibre from the fern trees," says North. The nest is placed in a cleft
in a tree, and contains three or four light gi"eenish-white eggs spotted and
speckled (thickest on the upper half) with brown and grey. This robin is
said to rear two and sometimes three broods in the year.

The species is described under the name of Petroeca multicolor Vig. and
Horsf ., in Gould's Handbook, but is now known under the specific name of
P. leggii, Sharpe. Lewin called it the Red-breasted Warbler. Gould says,
•' Its song and call-note much resemble that of the European robin, but are
more feeble and uttered with a more inward tone."

The Flame-breasted Robin {Petroeca phcenica Gould).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 232, No. Ifi7 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 123, No. 245.

This species has a similar range to that of the Scarlet-breasted Robin.
In the breeding season, says Campbell, it is more abundant in Tasmania and
the islands in Bass Straits than on the mainland. Its favourite haunts are
open valleys and mountain gullies. It builds the typical cup-shaped nest of
the, robins, composed of grass and fine roots, lined inside, and coated on the
outside with spiders' web and bits of lichen and bark. The nest may be
placed in the cleft of a rock, on the bank of a creek, or a hollow or depression
in a tree stem. The clutch of eggs, three or sometimes four, are greenish-white,
and spotted or blotched with brown or grey.

36 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The Miner or Soldier-bird {Myzantha garrula Vig. and Horsf.).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 574, No. 353 ; Leach'e Bird Book, p. 173, No. 173.

This well-known honey-eater ranges all over Tasmania, Victoria, South
Australia, New South Wales, and south-eastern Queensland ; there are several
other allied species with a more restricte^i habitat in the west, the interior,
and northern Queensland. Wherever there are open eucalyptus trees
growing you will find this noisy bird, popularly known as the Australian
Miner, to distinguish him from the very different Indian Minah, which is-
somewhat of a house pest in some of our towns. It has a host of popular
names, such as the Squeaker, Micky, Snake-bird, and Cherry-picker. I have
also heard it called Cockney in Victoria from the fact that it usually fights
in mobs.

Under natural conditions the Soldier-bird is very fearless and friendly, and
will come round the camp to pick up scraps and even enter a house or fly
into a tent. These birds are great fighters, and if one of their number gets
into trouble bis loud cries soon bring his comrades to his assistance. I
recall hearing a great commotion among the Miners in my garden, and
discovering the cat standing on one on a fence post ; the bird was-
putting up a great fight, while about a dozen more were darting round,
screaming and snapping at the cat's bead. Unable to stand the stress of
battle the cat released its victim and i*etreated under the house. (3n another
occasion a small hawk was observed in the cat's predicament ; it finally
dropped the fighting Miner, though the latter lost half his feathers before-
he escaped.

Like a number of the other honey-eaters (MeliphagidcB), the Miner —
having its brush-tipped tongue so admirably adapted for sucking up nectar
from bush flowers — discovered it to be also very serviceable for feeding upon
ripe fruit. Consequently it is often an orchard pest. Indeed, remembering
the damage done by it in country gardens (particularly among the ripe grapes)
the reader might debate its right to a place in our best of useful birds. It
is one of the few birds, however, that feed both on blow-flies about the bush
and upon their maggots when ci'awling out of a carcase. Miners often enter
an open tent to snap up blow-flies buzzing on the loof. At Warrah Experi-
ment Station one of these birds regularly takes up his station on the top of
one of our fly traps, catching the hovering flies and picking on the gauze top
at those imprisoned beneath. In the vicinity of a camp, Miners become
cosmopolitan in their tastes, and will eat bread or meat and not neglect the
carelessly left jam jar.

This bird is so universally known that it needs no close description. Its
slate-grey plumage, marked on the head with black, makes its easily recognised,
while the bare yellow spaces below the eyes, making it look as if it were^
blind, is a noticeable mark of identification. Its nest (usually placed in the
fork of a small or medium-sized gum-tree) is a neatly made, open, cup-shaped
structure, composed of grass and twigs, and lined with wool, hair, or feathers.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales,

' FLAME=BREASTED ROBIN."

PETRCECA PHCENICEA, Gould.

i 2

INSECTIVOROUS Birds of New South Wales.

"LAUGHING JACKASS."

Dacelo gigas, Bodd.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 37

The eggs, four in number, are bluish-white, marked all over with reddish-
brown dots. The Miner thrives under domestic conditions, and is a popular
bird despite its depredations in the fruit season,

Laughing jackass {Dacdo gigas Boddart).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 122, No, 60 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 105, No. 22.1.

The members of the genus Dacelo comprise some of the largest known
specimens of the family. They are quite unlike the smaller and more typical
kingfishers which are always found along the banks of creeks and rivers
and (as their name implies) capture small fish. The Laughing-jackass knows
little or nothing about fishing, and lives in the dry open forest country,
often miles away from the water. As it feeds upon small mammals, young
birds, hzards, earthworms, grubs, and earth-haunting insects, with an
occasional small snake, it requires very little water. Gould says " I believe
water is not essential to their existence, and that they seldom or never drink."
It is rather curious that this bird is not found in Tasmania, where there is
so much forest country similar to that on the mainland. It is not indigenous
to Western Australia, but it was introduced there some years ago and is
now well established.

There are three well-defined species of this genus peculiar to Australia.
The Laughing-jackass (ranging from South Australia, Victoria, New South
Wales and through the southern half of Queensland) gives place northward to
Leach's Kingfisher (Dacelo leachi) , which is slightly larger, has blue on the back
and wings, is much n.ore brilliantly coloured, and may be regarded as a
tropical form of our first species. In this bird we have the phenomenon of a
Laughing-jackass that cannot laugh, for its discordant note is far more of a bark.
The third species, now often called a variety of Leach's Kingfisher, is the
Fawn-breasted Kingfisher (Dacelo cervina), described by Gould under the
name of Dacelo occidentalis. It is somewhat smaller than Leach's Kingfisher,
frequents the tops of the tallest trees, and has a very discordant voice. It
extends its range beyond that of Leach's Kingfisher, through the Northern
Territory into Western Australia.

Of the many travellers and naturalists who have written about the
Australian bush, none forget to make mention of the Laughing-jackass. It
was described and figured in White's " Voyage to New South Wales " in
1790, under the name Great Brown Kingfisher, but the early pioneers'
association of the bird's call with the "hee-haw" of the domestic donkey,
made its more popular christening inevitable. Hence — though scientifically
the Great Brown Kingfisher, and alternatively, the Kookaburra and Settlers'
Clock (on account of its noisiness at daylight and dark), our jovial friend is
likely to remain the Laughing-jackass to the good Australian on the land.

There are few places in our bush where one can camp without hearing the call
of the Laughing-jackass at dawn and evening. In the evening in particular
they have a habit of gathering together in a little family party of half-a-
dozen or more, when they relate the experiences of the day in chuckles and
laughs that almost appear intelligible to the meditative bushman.

38 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

Civilisation appears to agree with the Laughing-jackass, as it does with
the magpies, and in the suburbs of Sydney it is commonly seen in a semi-
domesticated state, frequently visiting our gardens, or resting on our
chimney tops. The value of the Laughing-jackass as a deadly enemy of all
snakes is somewhat mythical. He certainly snaps up a small snake now and
then as a side-line, as it were ; but his chief value is as a destroyer of mice,
ground grubs, and other insects. He has certain bad habits. Like the Butcher-
bird, he will gobble up small nestlings in his native haunts, and, given the
opportunity, will make no bones about selecting a plump chick or duckling
when its mother is off guard. I remember an old shepherd on the Murray
who had a pet Jackass and a clutch of young ducks, which every day on
his return to the hut counted one short. He accused everybody but the
true culprit of responsibility for his loss, until one day he caught Master
Jackass finishing one of the last of the surviving ducklings, and the my.stery
was explained.

The jackass makes no true nest, but selecting a hollow spout in the limb
of a gum-tree, lays her two or three rounded white eggs on the decayed
wood — placed together so carelessly that it is not an uncommon thing for her
to accidentally tumble one out on the ground on entering or leaving the
opening into the stem. Occasionally one lays her eggs in a hole excavated
in the side of a white ant (termite) nest.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

39

SECTION II.

Birds of the Forests and Brushes.

The birds grouped under this section are those met with in the coastal
forests (which are chiefly of eucalyptus, acacia, and casuarina, with other
more shrubby trees as undergrowth), though we must also include the
Hawkesbury sandstone and similar areas on the mountain ranges. The
brushes, which are confined to the coastal districts and the Dividing Range,
vary considerably — from the fern-tree gullies of Gippsland, the cedar brushes
of New South Wales, the tropical jungles or " rain forests " of Queensland,
to the tropical forests of Cairns (which are almost equal in luxuriance of
growth to those of Brazil). Some of the birds named hereunder sometimes
stray into gardens and cultivated areas in search of food ; but they do not
make their homes there or become semi-domesticated like those of the first
section. Others are to be found in the area covered by our third section.

The following are the birds dealt

Coach-whip Bird (Psophodes

crepitans).

Brush-turkey (Talegallus lathami).

Lyre-bird {Menura superba).

Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus

Junereus)

Dollar-bird {Eurystomus australis).

More-pork {Podargus strigoides).

Delicate Owl [Strix delicatula).

Boobook Owl (Ninox hoohook).
Australian Bee-eater (^Merops

ornatus).
White-throated Nightjar

{Eurostopus alhigularis).
Harmonious Thrush (CoUyriocinda
harmonica).
Yellow-breasted Thickhead

(Pachycephala gutturalis).
Crested Shrike-tit (^Falcunculus

frontatus).

with under Section II : —

Short-billed Tree-tit (Smicornis

hrevirostris).
Mountain Thrush (Creocincia

lunulata).
Spotted Ground-bird {Cinclosoma

punctatum).
Spotted Diamond-bird [Pardalotus

punctatus).

Mistletoe-bird {Dicceum

hirimdinaceum).

Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike or

Blue Jay {Goracina rohusta).

White-shouldered Caterpillar-eater

(^Lalage tricolor).
Hooded Robin (Petroeca bicolor).
Yellow-breasted Robin {Eopsaltria
australis).
Pheasant-coucal (Centropus

phasianus).
Orange-backed Wren (Malurus

melanocephalus).

40 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The Coach-whip Bird {Psophodes crepitans Latham).
Goul.l's Handbook, vol. 1» p. 312, No 182 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 129, No. 272.

This is one oi the birds that live in the shelter of the tangled brush of our
coastal scrub ranging all along the eastern coast from Victoria, through New
South Wales into Queensland. In such localities the Coach- whip Bird is at
home ; but it seldom comes out in the open or far from protection.

This bird takes its popular name from its remarkable notes. Forcing one's
way through tangled grass and brush, and among dead logs and fallen trees,
one is arrested by a series of low clear notes, followed by a loud sharp one,
exactly like the crack of a whip. It is the call of the male bird to his mate,
she answering with a more gentle note the moment he stops. If one wishes
to observe the birds, he must remain quietly in any open glade in the forest,
and before Jona: he will see one or two medium-sized, blackish, or dark olive-
green birds, with a distinct white patch on either side of the neck, feathers
on the top of the head raised into a slight crest and a very noticeable long
and rather broad tail. They hop about over the scrub, jumping up on to
logs or fallen trees, and scratching up the soil in search of insects, snails, and
other small game, and will come quite close to the intruder into their domain,
watching him alertly with bright bead-like eyes, and ready to fly if he should
be dangei'ous.

The Coach-whip Bird builds a loosely-constructed nest of fresh twigs ; a
favourite situation in the Sydney scrub is a Bursaria bush, while in the
Queensland forest she favours a clump of lawyer palm. The eggs, two in
number, are oval in shape and glossy ; their colour is greenish- white, blotched
and marked with dark-brown and light-grey lines in fantastic patterns. In
captivity the Coach-whip Bird will eat meat, and I was told by a dealer that
he had one that killed a mouse which entered its cage.

The Brush -turliey or Wattled Talegallus [Talegalhis [Catheturus) lathami

Gould \
Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 150, No. 476.

This species of megapode is not unlike a small turkey, with its bare head,
yellow and blue wattles, stiff wing and tail feathers, and stout legs. When,
however, the first specimens were sent to Europe, it was described by Latham
as the New Holland Vulture, under the impression that it was allied to
the Turkey-buzzard or Carrion-vulture of America and the West Indies. It
occupies the semi-tropical forests along the eastern coastal mountains, and in
the early days of settlement was an inhabitant of the Illawarra brushes ; and
though still found in our northern scrubs, is more common in Queensland,
right up into Cape York and round to the north coast.

In this case the male Scrub-turkey does all the building of the mound neat,
•which is chiefly composed of earth mould and dead leaves scraped up into a
conical mound, about 21 to 4 feet in height, and 12 feet in diameter at the
base. When the male bird has finished the building up of the fresh mound,

tq

X

-

-o

H

*" .

a

o

Q

es

w

»

.'^

ta^

^

33

t^

H

^

^

a.

o

r

<1

Eh

m

^

E

a

£

Oh

m

u

O

<

o

n

V '■'',

About one-sixth natural size.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.
"LYRE BIRD."

Ilenura superha.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 41

often constructed on the site of last year's nest, the female comes round to
lay, scratching a hole in the summit of the mound about a foot in depth, into
which she crawls to lay her egg. As soon as the egg is laid, the male bird
appears and drives the female away, afterwards fixing the egg in an upright
position, filling up the hole, trampling down the leaves and mould, and
smoothing down the surface in a most business-like manner. From twelve
to fifteen large, white, fragile, gra.nulated eggs are placed in an irregular
pattern at a depth of about a foot, in the top of the mound, and when the
chick bursts its shell it soon scratches its way up to the surface (without any
outside assistance from the parent birds), an active little creature, quite able
to look after itself. Sometimes the one mound may be used by two or three
pairs of Scrub-turkeys, when it may contain as many as thirty-five eggs in all
stages of incubation.

Like the Mallee-hen, these birds, from their scratching habits, find many
ground insects, snails, and slugs, and a bird the size of a small turkey can
account for a great number of insects every day.

The Lyre-bird (Menura superha T)avies).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 298, No. 179 ; Leach'a Bird Book, p. 112, No. 237.

Three distinct species of Lyre-birds inhabit the coastal forests of eastern
Australia — -the Victorian Lyre-bird in Gippsland, the above species, peculiar
to New South Wales, and the Albert Lyre-bird, which is restricted to the
northern river scrubs of New South Wales and southern Queensland, and
ranges only as far north as Wide Bay.

It is somewhat remarkable that these birds are not represented in the rich
tropical forests in the north. No bird attracted more attention than our
Lyre-bird when first brought under the notice of naturalists. On account of
its wonderful tail it was first classed among the Birds of Paradise, then
because of its size and powerful scratching feet it was considered to be a
gallinaceous biid ; finally, from the study of its anatomy, it was shown to be
a perching bird allied to the thrushes. The three species are now placed in
the family Menuridce.

The original native name of the Lyre-bird was Buln-buln, on account
of its usual call-note. The early settlers called it in different localities the
Mountain-pheasant, the Native Wood-pheasant, or simply the Pheasant,
because of its coloration ; in other places it was known as the Mocking-
bird, in reference to its capacity for mimicking all the voices of the bush,
but its present and most characteristic popular name is the Lyre-bird, in
allusion to its wonderful tail, which is shaped like a Greek lyre. Many
curious pictures were drawn, and accounts written about the Lyre-birds by
travellers in the early days. One said that the male used to stand with its
outspread tail turned to the morning breeze and create sweet music by
allowing the wind to blow through the stiff feathers, like an ^olian harp.
Margaret Catchpole says : " The most beautiful attitude that I once saw the

42 • SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

male Lyre-bird in beats anything I ever beheld of what men call politeness.
I have heard and read of delicate attentions paid to our sex by men of noble
and generous dispositions, but I scarcely ever heard of such delicate attention
as I one day witnessed in this noble bird towards its mate. I saw her •
sitting in the heat of the meridian sun upon her nest, and the cock bird
sitting near her with his tail expanded like a bower overshadowing her ; and
as the sun moved, so did he turn his elegant parasol to guard her from its
rays. Now and then he turned his bright eye to see if she were comfortable,
and she answered his inquiry with a gentle note and rustle of her feathers."
Baron Cuvier, writing in 1859, says : "They are said to sing for a couple
■of hours in the morning, beginning when they quit the valleys till they attain
the summit of a hill, where they scrape together a small hillock as they
exhume the grubs on which they feed ; on this they afterwards stand, with
the tail spread over them, and in this situation imitate the notes of every
bird within hearing, till after a while they return to the low ground."

John Gould studied the Lyre-birds and gave us the first reliable account
of their habits in his "Birds of Australia," published in 1848, and after-
wards in several papers sent to the Zoological Society of London.

Though differing in plumage and coloration, the three species appear to
have identical habits, and all destroy large numbers of more or less
destructive grubs, snails, and other forest pests. The life-history of Menura
superha, the most handsome of the three forms, applies equally to the other
two. It is the size of a small fowl ; the upper surface is of a uniform, dull,
brownish-black colour, and the under surface is lighter and silvery under the
tail. It is this unique tail that has been the cause of its undoing. In the
earliest days of settlement, " the blackfellows prized it for an ornament, as
well as the Europeans, who gave a great price for it." (Russell, 1839.) In
1861, Wheelwright, speaking of the Dandenong and Plenty Ranges in
Victoria, says : " The blacks make periodical excursions up into the ranges
about September when the birds are full feathered, and come back laden
with tails." Regarding the destruction of Lyre-birds for their tails,
I remember seeing them sold in the streets of Sydney, about 1888, for
half-a-crown a pair, but Mr. Aflalo's story ("A Sketch of the Natural
History of Australia," 1896), of two brothers in Sydney employing a number
of men to shoot these birds, and obtaining 500 dozen tails in a few weeks,
seems to be somewhat exaggerated.

The Lyre-bird is a very active creature, and in spite of its size is seldom
seen, though often heard by the wanderer who invades its haunts. When
suddenly startled it has the curious habit of jumping upward into the
branches of a tree and there stopping. The tail hunters learnt this habit,
and with trained dogs soon " treed " the bird and shot it before it reached
the top. The nest is a large affair constructed at the base of a tree, often
hidden among tree ferns, and containing a single dark-brown blotched
egg. The nestling is a ball of brown fluff — '* all claws and beak," as a

Approximately one-quarter natural size.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.
" THE BLACK COCKATOO."

Calyptorhynchus fiinereus.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. iZ

surveyor friend of mine described a half-fledged one that he tumbled across.
It had rolled out of its nest among the ferns, and fought like a cat when he
tried to pick it up.

It is interesting to note that the mocking-birds of North America are
thrushes, and that our Lyre-birds are allied to the same family. They are well
known for their powers, not only of imitating other birds in the bush, but
also of copying such sounds as the sharpening of a saw, the chopping of an
axe, or the bark of a dog.

With well-enforced protection against tail-hunters, there is no doubt that
the Lyre-birds would soon inci'ease and multiply in their forest surroundings
but for the fact that the fox has entered into their domain, and this deadly
enemy of all ground-nesting birds finds the nesting Lyre-bird and the baby
nestling easy prey. If, however, the Lyre-bird learns from this new
experience to build her nest in the fork of a tree well off the ground, as some
observers say she is doing, she may still hold her own in the scrub and fern-
tree gullies. A movement has been put on foot to capture a number of
Lyre-birds and turn them out in the fern-tree gullies on the slopes of Mount
Wellington in Tasmania, where there are no foxes, in order to save the
species from extinction, and to add to the charm of the Tasmanian bush.

Through the kindness of a naturalist friend who, wandering through the
scrub at the back of Narrabeen Lake, had flushed a Lyre-bird off her nest,
I was able to make some careful observations of the nest and nestling. The
nest was built on the top of a shoulder-high cliff in a patch of bracken fern,
and it was quite a solid affair of sticks and fern leaves. The young bird
was thickly covered with dark down. The moment one looked into the nest
it gave an angry, frightened shriek, and fluffed itself up in the open nest
facing the visitors. The mother bird came flying up, but seeing us, she
dropped to the ground about ten yards away, and sheltered in the scrub.
The young bird every now and then gave his harsh cry, and the mother, after
a little while, came round the nest well into view. As long as we remained
quiet she did not seem very frightened.

The Black Cockatoo {Galyptorhynchus funereus Shaw).

Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 20, No. 401 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 89, No. 188.
Though there are only five species of Black Cockatoos found in the whole of
Australia, three of them are common in this )State. The above species
{C . funereus), often known as the Yellow-eared Cockatoo, is the most common
and has the widest range, being found in Tasmania, the islands in Bass'
Straits, through the coastal ranges of eastern and South Australia, and
sometimes even finding its way in search of honey blossoms and insects inta
the more inland forests and mallee scrubs. Like all the members of the
cockatoo tribe, these birds nest in the holes or rotten branches of tall dead
gum-trees, in which the female lays two white eggs. Under ordinary
conditions they are true forest-haunting birds. Although their chief food

44 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

supplies are the seeds and honey blossoms of our larger forest trees, they
play an important part in the economy of nature and the life of our forest
trees.

In Europe and America a large family of forest birds, popularly known as
woodpeckers, police the forests, and with their sharp-pointed beaks drill out
and destroy the thousands of wood-boring insects and their larvae that would
otherwise kill the trees. In Australia we have no representative of the
woodpeckers, but the Black Cockatoo with its powerful gnawing bill hunts
over the trunk and branches of 'infested trees and tears out great strips of
bark and wood, beneath which the wood-moth and beetle larvae are bur-
rowing and feeding. Mr. E. Palmer, of Lawson, once showed me the
stem of a gum-tree about 6 inches in diameter that had been cut right
through by a Black Cockatoo hunting out a wood-grub, and it is not an
uncommon thing to come across branches of wattles and gum-trees in the
valleys of the Blue Mountains torn and splintered in this manner where
the cockatoos have been at work. The black and silver wattles along our
coastal country are very much subject to the attacks of large white grubs,
the larvae of the goat-moths [Eudoxyla eucalypti). TI)e branches and trunks
of these scrub trees as they mature are often full of these wood-borers, which
used to be sought afeter by our blackfellows in the old days. It is recorded
that the Black Cockatoos used to visit this country every season, and between
the two the wattles were more or less cleared of wood-borers before the
advent of the white man.

With increasing settlement these shy birds have been shot, or driven out
of their old haunts, and this is probably why many of our wattles are now
such short-lived trees. As one of our few forest rangers, the Black Cockatoo
should be most carefully protected.

The Dollar-bird {Eurystomus australis Swain).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 119, No. 59 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 105, No. 219.

This bird is so widely known under the name of the Dollar-bird that I
adopt it in preference to that of the Australian Roller, though the latter may
be more exact. It belongs to a group of birds that are allied to the Kingfishers,
and it is our sole representative of a genus the members of which are scat-
tered over Africa, Madagascar, India, China, and the Malay Archipelago.
Many are migratory ; our species ranges from the Malay Islands and New
Guinea into New South Wales, where most of them nest. A few reach Vio-
toria, but they are comparatively rare in the southern State.

The Dollar-bird is one of our showy, handsome birds, and it also attracts
one's attention by its chattering cry. It usually takes up its post of obser-
vation on the limb of a dead tree or on a telegraph post and from such a
position it watches for insects flying past and darts out with its curious rolling
flight, exhibiting at the same time the characteristic rounded white patch in
the centre of the wing from which mark it derives its name. The stomach of

4

\

^

'"■^^

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

" DOLLAR BIRD."

Eurystomus australis, Swainson.

IxsECTrvoROus IjIrds of Xew South "Wales.

*'MORE=PORK/'

Fodargus strigoides. Lath.

*v^

About one-half natural size.

Insectivorous Bikds of New South Wales.
"DELICATE OWL."

Striw delicatula.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 45

one of these birds has been found to contain two rose-chafer beetles, part of
a cicada, and other beetle remains ; but they also capture moths, though
Gould says that he found nothing but the remains of beetles in specimens he
dissected.

The Dollar-bird constructs no nest, but, like its cousin the Laughing-jackass,
deposits its eggs in a hole in a hollow limb, upon the decayed wood. The
eggs, four in number, are very round and pearly white. The birds nest from
September to December in New South Wales.

The More-pork {Podargus strigoides Latham).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 84 No. 40 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 104, No. 217.

This curious bird takes it popular name from the old idea that the noc-
turnal call of " more-pork " or " mopoke " was made by it, though the cry is
now known to be that of the Boobook-owl. The only sound I evei
heard the More-pork make was an angry grunt when disturbed in its mid
day sleep ; it is said, however, to repeat when flying, a feeble cry like " oom-
oom oom."

During the day, this bird, like the owl, sleeps in the shelter of a bush, and
her remarkable grey, white, and mottled-brown plumage blends into a won-
derful protective coloration. This is seen to perfection if you come upon one
nesting on the bole of a white gum, upon which she simply places a few
sticks, in such a primitive fashion that one wonders why the pair of pure-
white eggs do not tumble off whenever she moves. Sitting on her nest she
presses her body against the tree-stem, head and tail in line, so that in spite
of her size, you might pass close to her without recognising as a bird the ex-
crescence on the limb. Gould described eight species of More-pork (or Frog-
mouth, as some writers call them), but modern writers have decided that the
Tasmanian form (which Gould called Podargus curveri) is the same as our
cotnmon species. Three other species are found in different parts of Aus-
tralia. Our More-pork has a wide range over Tasmania and the whole of
Australia except the northern part of Western Australia.

The More-poi"k feeds upon the phasmids, mantis, leaf grasshoppers, and
cicadas which are found resting or moving among the foliage at night. In
my garden I had several young More-porks which used to rest on a flower-pot
with eyes closed. When a mouse was dangled in front of one of them, it
would open its great mouth, apparently let the mouse run down its throat,
shut its beak with a snap and go to sleep again.

The Delicate Owl {Strix delicatula Gould).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 66, No. 31 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 86, No. 179.
Owls are nocturnal birds of prey that usually sleep or hide during the
hours of daylight in thick brush, old ruins, rocky caves, or hollows of big
gum-trees. At twilight and all through the night they hunt for their food,
which consists chiefly of small mammals, birds, and the larger insects that
move about under cover of the dark hours. Most of their food is captured

46 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

on the wing, and their whole structure is admirably adapted for the life they
lead. Their plumage is beautifully soft and loose, so that their flight is
almost noiseless ; their stout legs are furnished with large feet terminating
in powerful claws, so that they can snap up their prey as they fly over the
ground or through the trees ; their large heads are provided with round
projecting eyes, surrounded with a flattened disc of feathei's that intensify
their vision, and the hawk-like hooked beaks are adapted for tearing their
prey to pieces.

There is some doubt as to which particular bird Avas defined under this
name in the Scriptures, and though the translators from the Hebrew coupled
the owl with desolation, more modern students consider that such dissimilar
birds as the ostrich, pelican, and cormorant have been placed under the name
of the owl. Among the Greeks and Romans the owl was considered the
emblem of wisdom, and was sacred to Minerva, Goddess of Wisdom, Arts,.
and War ; and, as Pallas Athene, it was the tutelary goddess of Athens.

The Delicate Owl is so closely related to the common European Barn Owl
{Strix flammea) that it is usually considered only a sub-species peculiar to-
Australia, New Caledonia, New Hebrides, and New Guinea. It well deserves
the name of Delicate Owl on account of its beautiful, soft, white breast
feathers and dainty brown markings on the back and shoulders. It ranges
over all classes of country. I once caught one in the homestead stable
among the granite ranges of north-western Victoria ; it was quite blind^
and had wasted away to skin and bone from the grass-seeds that had become
embedded in its eyes. When on the Flinders River tablelands in northern
Queensland I remember them as plentiful, sleeping in the open weather-worn
cavities eaten out of the sides of the sandstone gorges. Explorei-s in central
Australia record them as common in the thick-foliaged mulga bushes in the
inland scrubs, and others have found them sleeping in hollow spouts in the
limbs of big gum-trees along the river banks of the Northern Territory.

It is in this latter situation that they usually lay their eggs, six in number,
on the decayed wood on the bottom of the cavity in the limb ; the eggs are,
as with most owls, pure-white and very round. The European variety has
the curious habit of bringing up the nestlings in pairs. As soon as the first
pair of eggs are hatched, she deposits a second pair of eggs, which are hatched
in due course by the warmth of the bodies of the first clutch, and often a
third pair are hatched in this manner. Among the country folk in England
the Barn Owl is looked upon as an evil creature that peers through the
window of the sick-room, and its sudden hoot at the dead of night warns one
of coming death. In some places they also believe that if one discovers a*
resting owl, he can, by walking slowly round it, cause it to twist its head off",
as it keeps turning its head to watch the intruder. From their nocturnal
habits, soft soundless flight, and weird call-notes, the Barn Owl^ in the dark
ages were often associated with witches, who were supposed to assume the
garb of owls when flying about at night. Though to a certain extent a

i

^fe..

T-rtt -i^

%■

\

X,

ir

■-^

About one-third natural size^

Insectivorous Bikds of New South Wales.
"BOOBOOK OWL."

Kinox hoobook.

Slig-htl}' less than half -size.

Insectivorous Birds of New Soutu Wales.
''THE AUSTRALIAN BEE=EATER."

MerojjS ornatus.

f^:^

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 47

destroyer of insects, it is as an active enemy of mice, rats, and all kinds of
small destructive rodents that this owl does so much valuable service to the

farmer.

The Boobook Owl (Ninox hoohook Latham)
Gould Handbook, vol. I, p. 74, No. 36 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 85, No. 175.

This bird is also known as the Brown or Cuckoo-owl, and was described
in Gould's Handbook under the name of Athene Boohook. He says that the
native name of this owl was " Buck-buck," in reference to its call-note, but
the hoot of the Boobook Owl is " more-pork," sharp and distinct. It is
somewhat remarkable that the popular idea was, and still is in many places,
that the Frogmouth (Podargus curveri), another quaint night bird, was
responsible for the weird night-cry of " more-pork."

This owl is peculiar to Australia, with a very wide range over the country,
and is also recorded from Lord Howe Island. Though so noisy at night,
when driven out of its resting-place into the bright sunshine it utters no
sound, but, dazed by the unwelcome light, flutters away to more secure cover,
at the mercy of all the small birds in the neighbourhood that gather together
and hunt it away, looking upon it as a probable enemy. At twilight and
night-time the Boobook Owl is active and alert, floating along silently in
search of mice or small roosting birds, which it picks up in its powerful claws
as it flies past, and in the same way catches beetles and night-flying or
feeding insects. Gould states, and other writers have copied his statements,
that this owl feeds chiefly upon orthoptera (tree grasshoppers, phasmids, &c.)
and neuroptera (lace-winged insects) ; but these are only a minor portion of
its food. Its chief value is as a hunter of mice, and when a pair of the birds
take up their quarters near the farmer's outhouses they should be carefully
encouraged to remain. I examined a large series of cast pellets voided by a
pair of these owls that had selected the hayshed at Wagga Experiment Farm
as their headquarters, and they consisted almost entirely of mouse fur and
bones, with here and there a few green feathers that suggested that a green
grass parrot had been caught napping.

The nesting habits are similar to those of the Delicate Owl, but the clutch
only comprises three eggs, round and white, resting on the decayed wood in
the bottom of the hollow limb.

The Bee-eater {Merops ornatus Latham),
Gould's Handbook, Vol. I, p. 117, No. 58 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 107, No. 224.

This handsome little bird belongs to an interesting family, not related to
any other of our birds, but allied to the Oriental Hoopoos, remarkable for
their crown of upright feathers. The members of the family Meropidce range
over southern Europe, Africa, and Asia, and the distinctive group to which
our species belongs contains seventeen species, distinguished from the other
bee-eaters by having the two central tail feathers elongated.

Our Bee-eater is found all over Australia, frequenting open forest country
and the timber along river banks and creeks. It can easily be distinguished
from other birds, when at rest or on the wing, by its slender black bill,

48 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

delicate green plumage, orange and black markings upon head and throat, and
the projecting central tail feathers, which are very conspicuous when flying.
Usually pei'ching upon the outstretched dead branch of a gum-tree or a tele-
graph lino (if one is handy) it sits on guard, ready to pounce down and snap
up any insect flying past its post of observation. Though some writers
have specified particular groups of insects as its food, scarcely anything in the
insect line comes amiss, and its food is as varied as the insects of the district.
When, insect-hunting on the summit of Mount Marmion, in north-west Aus-
tralia, I once aroused the interest of a pair of Bee-eaters, which followed me
round and snapped up every butterfly or moth that I disturbed from the
undergrowth but missed with my net.

The nesting habit of the birds are peculiar, for they make regular tunnels-
with openings no bigger than a mouse hole, into steep river banks. These
tunnels are about a yard in length, and open out into little pockets, in which are
laid four or five pinkish-white eggs. As an active insectivorous bird and often
in sufiicient numbers to make an effective onslaught upon many of our com-
mon insect pests, the Bee-eater may be placed in a prominent place in our list.
There is, however, another side to its activities, for, as its name implies, this-
bird is very fond of honey bees, and in agricultural districts is not regarded
with favour. In the Tamworth district bee-keepers look upon the Bee eater
as a nuisance, if not a pest, and claim that it is very destructive to honey
bees, catching them as they come home to the hive. It is, however, when
the work of breeding queen bees is being carried out that this bird does the
most serious damage. The Apiarist at Hawkesbury Agricultural College
informed me that the losses there due to Bee-eaters are sometimes very serious.
A critical period is that just after the wedding flight, when the young queen
circles round as if taking her bearings, before turning for home.

Showing, however, how things tend to right themselves, there was an
account in a Victorian newspaper some years ago stating that bee-keepers had
welcomed the event of a flock of Bee-eaters into their district, because they
had destroyed the large dragon-flies, which had previously been hawking over
their bee-hives. Now, both dragon-flies and robber-flies (also bee-killers),,
under normal conditions are among our most useful friendly insects, destroy-
ing noxious insects, such as mosquitos and other pest flies ; yet this time they
in turn were pests to the bee-keepers.

The White-throated Nightjar {Eurostopus albigularis Vig. & Horsf.).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 96, No. 48 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 107, No. 225.
There are two distinct species of this genus confined to Australia and
New Guinea. The first, which we figure, ranges over the open forest country
of South Australia and the whole of eastern Australia from Victoria to
Queensland, and across into New Guinea. The second, Eurostopus argus,
the Spotted Nightjar, was described by Gould under the name of Eurostopodus
guttatiis, and extends from New South Wales all over Western Australia.

\ ^

^■t'-

y

\ :

C Q

Q ■:-

o O
Q EC

t^

ra

Si

^ I

E

H

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.
" GREY SHRIKE THRUSH."

0 ollyriocincla harmonica, Latham.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

"THICKHEAD. '

Pachycephala gutturalis, Latham.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 49

These birds have very similar habits ; they rest on the ground during the
daytime and are most active at twilight and at dawn, when they capture all
kinds of night-flying insects on the wing. Their large black eyes and long
powerful wings are admirably adapted to their nocturnal habits. Though
the male and female are very similar in their markings, the plumage of the
latter is more brightly coloured, and she is slightly larger than her mate.
She constructs no nest, simply depositing her single, finely-spotted e^g upon
the soil, sheltered by a tussock or log.

Several popular names (such as Moth-owl, Fern-owl, and the remarkable
one of Goatsucker) have been given to these birds by the rural population
of England. The bird known in North America under the popular name of
Whip-poor-Will is a nightjar.

The Harmonious Thrush {Collyriocincla harmonica Latham).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I. p. 220, No. 123 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 149, No. S15.

The Harmonious Thrush is a very typical I'epresentative of the shrike-
thrushes, of which Gould lists six species peculiar to Australia and Tasmania,
each of which seems to have its own particular range. Our species is
sometimes known as the Grey Shrike-thrush, and White, in his " Voyage ta
New South Wales," figured and described it under the name of the Port
Jackson Thrush, but its remarkably clear notes, taken in conjunction with
its thrush-like form and habits, entitle the name I have chosen to popularity.

This is a rather thick-set bird of a uniform greyish-brown tint, with the
under-surface lighter and face whitish, but its large bright eyes are its most
striking character. It has an extended range over the greater part of eastern
Australia from Queensland to Victoria and is scattered over South Australia.
Though usually met with hunting over the ground in forest country, it is
very often noticeable in the tree-planted streets of country towns, where it
will fearlessly fly down to the roadside to pick up incautious insects. Most
of its food consists of ground-living insects. Its deep, clear call-notes are
very distinctive, and by this means its resting-place can be easily located.

The nest is placed in any sheltered position situated on the bank of a
creek or watercourse in the brush, on the bole of a tree, or a ledge of rock.
It is cup-shaped, constructed from strips of bark, leaves, and fibrous roots .
and usually contains three rounded pearly-white eggs, blotched and spotted
with olive and grey.

The Yellow-breasted Thickhead (Pachycephala gutturalis Latham).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 207, No. 113 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 151, No. 322.
The group to which this handsome species belongs contains a, number of
birds known as thickheads. Leach calls the birds in this group, whistlers^
and considers the former name ill-choosen, but it seems to me wiser, until a
more definite name than whistler is chosen, to adhere to the old and well-
known group name first given. Even the popular name is not unanimously
used. In Campbell's "Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds" our thick-

50 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

head is caUed the White-throated Thickhead, while Leach lists it as the
Golden-breasted Whistler. Among the earlier writers, Lewin named it
twice— the Orange-breasted Thrush and the Black-crowned Thrush. Latham
dubbed it the Black-breasted Flycatcher and Shaw, in doubt, named it
Motacilla duhia.

This is a forest-loving bird, li\dng both in the open gum and wattle scrub,
and in the more dense coastal thickets and cedar brushes. It hunts for
insects among the branches and foliage and also upon the ground. All the
thickheads have much the same habits and are rather shy birds. They are
best observed by resting in the brush they frequent, and by keeping perfectly
quiet. Their call-notes are seven or eight low whistles ending in a sharp
crack, not unlike that of the true Coach-whip Bird, but easily distinguished
by one who has listened to the louder, shriller note of the latter.

The nest is a shallow, loosely-made, saucer-like structure, composed of dry
grass and rootlets, lined inside with feathers, and placed in the fork of a tree
a few feet from the ground. It contains three creamy-white to buff-coloured
eggs, which are ornamented with a band of bi'own and lilac spots round the
broadest end.

Crested Shrike-tit {Falcuncuhis frontatus Latham).

(iould s Handbook, vol. I, p, 228, No. 129 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 150, No. 320.

The genus to which this bird belongs contains two species peculiar to
Australia. This species ranges from Queensland through New South Wales
and Victoria into South Australia ; the second, the White-bellied Shrike-tit
(Falcuncuhis leucogaster) is confined to Western Australia. It is rather
remarkable that our species is not found in an island like Tasmania where
the great gum-tree forests in which it delights are so previlent.

This bird has gone under quite a number of popular names ; Campbell
calls it simply Shrike-tit ; Leach among others the Yellow-bellied or Yellow-
breasted Shrike-tit, Falcon-shrike, and Frontal-shrike. Gould says : "They
resemble the European tits and the Indian parras, and are also allied to the
Australian thickheads." The Crested Shrike-tit is found in the tangled
coastal brushes and the more open gum-tree forests. At a camp below
Hay, there were several that lived in the red gums along the river ; they
used to visit the tents to unravel and carry off the strands of the frayed
tent ropes, probably to line their nests Mdth. Clinging head downward
while picking away at the rope end, they showed off the rich colours of
their plumage, and would let one approach within a few yards. In a big
gum-tree they are very active birds, hunting over the stems and branches,
tearing off with their powerful beaks the loose dead bark, and feeding upon
the exposed insects — chiefly small beetles, larvae, and ants. When attacked
or wounded by other birds they are good fighters, and with their powerful
bills can inflict a serious wound upon bird or man. The male and female
differ both in size and coloration. The female is the smaller ; the black on
the throat of the male is in her case replaced by green, and her eyes and feet
are darker.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

" CRESTED SHRIKE TIT."

Falcunculus frontatus, Latham.

Insectivohous Birds of New South Wales.

"SHORT=BILLED TREE TIT. "

Smicrornis hrevirostris, Gould.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales

"MOUNTAIN THRUSH."

Oreocincla lunidata. Latham.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 51

Gould, when he published his great work, did not know anything about
the nest or eggs of the Crested Shrike-tit, but later bird hunters found that
the nest was placed in a slender fork in the topmast branch of a gum-tree.
It is comprised of strips of fine bark and grass forming a sphere-shaped cup^
coated on the outside with bits of lichen and moss matted together with
spiders' web, and lined inside with softer material. The oval, white eggs, two
or three in number, are freckled all over with fine spots, with a few larger
blotches of dark olive-grey and reddish-brown at their apex. Mr. G. E.
Shepherd, the Victorian naturalist, quoted by Campbell, says that the nest
would be hard to find were it not for the male bird piping forth a low soft
flute-like note on an adjacent limb. He sings while she (the female) works
hard to build the nest, the male apparently assisting very little, if at all, in
the work. He does a certain amount of the preliminary work, however, in
clearing a space for the nest before the foundations are laid, adds the
observer.

The Short-billed Tree-tit {Smicojnis hrevirostris Gould).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 272, No. 161 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 124, No. 250.

This is one of the smallest and at the same time one of the most industrious
birds in Australia ; it is allied to the European tits, and has very similar
habits. It spends its time among the foliage of the gum-trees hunting for
insects among the flowers and leaves. This species has a wide range over
eastern Australia from Queensland to Victoria and across South Australia to
the West. It makes a very small, perfectly round nest of grass, lined inside
with feathers and grass matted together with spiders' web, with a tiny
opening on the side. This swings among the foliage or is attached to a twig,
and is only three inches in diameter. The eggs, of which there are three or
four, are brownish and glossy, with a belt of darker brown round the apex.

These birds live in small communities, traversing the top-most gum
branchlets. According to Campbell, their ordinary call is "a rasping little
note like a tit's [Acanthiza), while now and again they answer one another
in a sweet simple call."

The Mountain Thrush {Creocinda lunulata Latham).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 439, No. 275 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 133, No. 280.

This bird is a true thrush, belonging to the same family (Turdidce) as the
well-known British Thrush, Black-bird, and Nightingale; and it has been
proposed to place it in the typical genus Turdus. Its generic name has been
altered several times. Mr. Campbell called it Geocichla lunulata.

As its name suggests, the Mountain or Ground Thrush lives chiefly upon
the ground ; in Tasmania it frequents the bush on the slopes of Mount
Wellington, in New South Wales it inhabits the cedar brushes of the Liver-
pool Plains, and in Victoria it secretes itself in the dense ti-tree scrub along
the shores of Hobson's Bay. In South Australia it is found in similar
localities.

52 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The food of this bird chiefly consists of land snails, earth-worms, insect
larvae, and ants. It is one of the earliest nesting birds in the bush. Com-
mencing to build in mid-winter it constructs a large open nest of moss,
leaves, and grass matted together with earth, and lined inside. Built upon a
stout limb of a low tree, it is usually well sheltered by the scrub and, even
if only a few feet off the ground, is easily passed unnoticed. The buff-white
eggs, two or three in number, are spotted or blotched with reddish-brown
and clouded with red.

The Spotted Ground-bird (Cinclosoina punctatum Latham).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 433, No. 271 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 128, No. 206.

Five species of this genus are given in Ramsey's list— one a rare species
from Derb}', north-west Australia, and four (of which two are common in
New South AVales) from the interior. The Spotted Ground-bird is found in
Tasmania, and ranges through South Australia and Victoria, well up into
Queensland. It frequents scrubby country, trusting to its running powers
when startled ; its habits and actions are somewhat similar to those of the
quail.

These birds, says Gould, were often exposed for sale in Hobart under the
name of the Ground Dove, together with Wattle-birds and Bronze-wing
Pigeons. They are handsome birds with chestnut, black and white plumage,
but though widely scattered over the country, are seldom seen by the ordinary
traveller on account of their retiring habits. They form a loose round nest
of bark and leaves, which is always built on the ground, and contains two,
and sometimes three, large, brown, blotched eggs.

The Spotted Diamond-bird (Pardalotus pimctatus Tem.).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 157, No. 81 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 167, No. 340.

The beautiful little birds belonging to the genus Pardalotus are peculiar to
Australia and Tasmania. Seven species were listed by Gould, Two or three
species may sometimes be found frequenting the same locality, but some have
a well-defined range. This representative species has a very wide distribu-
tion over Tasmania and the southern and eastern areas of Australia.
In the days when every genteel home had a case of stuffed birds in a
prominent position in the drawing-room, the motley assembly invariably
contained a pair of Spotted Diamond-birds. They are very active, fearless
little birds. I remember, as a small boy in Victoria, watching a pair that spent
a lot of time on the shingle roof of a verandah, scraping up the soft, weathered
wood fibre, which they apparently collected and carried off to line their nest.
They spend most of their time among the foliage of the trees, hunting on the
leaves and among the loose bark on the trunk and branches for all sorts of
small insects.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

"SPOTTED GROUND BIRD."

Ginclosoma punctatnm, Latham.

iNSECxn'ORous Birds of New South Wales.

" DIAMOND BIRD."

Pardalotus punctatus, Shaw.

Insectivorous Birds of T^ew Socth Wales.

"MISTLETOE BIRD."

Dicceum hirundinaceum, Gould.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 53

It is a remarkable fact that, while all our other species make their nests in
hollows or holes in trees, this species should be subterranean in its nesting
habits. Selecting a shelving bank, the female drills a small circular tunnel
in a horizontal direction for several feet through the soil, and forms at the
end of it a regular chamber. There, in pitch darkness, she builds a carefully-
woven nest of bits of bark, with a hole on the side, and in this she lays four
■or five rather round pure-white eggs. How these birds construct such a
compact nest in absolute darkness, and why they should take so much trouble
over one that is hidden beyond two feet of clay, are questions that are very
hard to answer. Though the Spotted Diamond-bird is common in some
localities, it is not often seen by the casual observer ; and the hole in the
bank leading into the nest chamber is so small that, unless you are lucky
enough to see the little cave-nester entering or emerging, you may easily
jmiss its doorway.

The Mistletoe-bird {Dicceum hirmidinaceum Shaw).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 581, No. 358; Leachs Bird Book, page 166, No. 366.

This curious little bird is the sole representative in Australia of a group
common in the Indian region and southward to New Guinea. It has a wide
range over the greater part of Australia, but does not extend to Tasmania.
Lewin, in his " Birds of New Holland," called it the Crimson-throated
Honey-eater ; other writers, following its scientific name, call it the Swallow
Dicseum. Among popular names it has had that of Cherry -picker, but as this
little bird confines itself to the bush forest, the name does not seem a
particularly appropriate one. It is a common resident in the open forest,
where it makes its home in the she-oak trees. It is the bird's fondness for
the mistletoe — the milky-berried parasite plant which infests the she-oak in
common with others of our trees — -which gives it the name we have favoured.
Indeed, the fruit of these native mistletoes, with small insects, forms the
main part of our friend's diet.

Though often numerous in suitable localities, by reason of its small size and
retiring habits (for it usually frequents the topmost branchlets of the she-oak),
the Mistletoe-bird is seldom seen by the casual visitor to bushland. Gould says
of its music "Its song is a very animated and long continued strain, but is
uttered so inwardly that it is almost necessary to stand beneath the tree
upon which the bird is perched before its notes can be heard."

The Mistletoe-bird is a tiny bird with the shining black coat of a swallow
and the crimson throat of a robin. The female is not so richly coloured as
the male, the crimson tint being reduced to brownish buff. The nest is a beauti-
ful structure swung to a slender branchlet of she-oak or gum. It is a pear-
shaped bag, composed of seeds, spiders' cocoons, and soft vegetable matter.
It has an opening on the side and contains three or four pure-white eggs.

54 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike [Coiacina rohusta).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 192, No. 103 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 127, No. 262.

The Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike has a number of popular namei). In my
boyhood in Victoria I remember we called it the Big Summer-bird to
distinguish it from the smaller wood-swallows — also summer-birds. In New
South Wales it is called the Blue-jay, as in the plate illustrating our article.
Other popular names are Blue-pigeon, Leatherhead, and Cherry-hawk — three
names, given in Leach's list, that are very misleading. Its scientific name
has also been changed, for it was described in Gould's work as Graucalus
melanops, while Latham had previously designated it Corvus melanops. Black-
faced Crow. This bird has suffered badly from a multiplicity of names and
has been likened to a number of birds to which it has no affinity.

The Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike is a handsome slate-blue bird, with the side
of the face and neck black. It generally flies alone or in pairs, and either in
flight or when resting on the ground resembles a cuckoo. It usually selects
as its perch a bare branch of a tall gum ; here it feeds on passing insects,
but it also gets some of its food from among the grass. It has a very wide
range, from the Malay Archipelago, through New Guinea and Australia, tO'
Tasmania.

This bird's nest is a shallow one, situated on the tip of a horizontal branch
and composed of small sticks closely woven together ; in this it lays two
eggs, varying from bi'own to dull-green in colour, spotted and blotched all
over the surface with brown.

The White-shouldered Caterpillar-eater {Lalage tricolor Swainson).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 204, No. 112 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 127, No. 256.

This bird was originally described under the name ' of Campephaga.
hmmralis, but later was removed from that group into the genus Lcdage^
Though the older popular name of White-shouldered Campephaga may be-
rather cumbersome it is much more distinctive than that of Caterpillar-eater,
a name which might be applied to many other birds. In the later generic-
application, White-shouldered Lalage, we would have a suitable and
euphonious popular name. The White-shouldered Lalage is migratory in
New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, appearing in the first.
State in November. With its bright black and white plumage it somewhat
resembles a large robin. It frequents the open forest, has a quick, direct
flight, and gets most of its food on the ground.

The nest is a very shallow affair, composed of bits of bark woven together
with dried twigs and grass, lined inside and placed in the fork of a dead
tree. The eggs, two or three in number, vary in ground colour from pale-
green to greyish ; those in some clutches are deeply and heavily blotched,,
but in others may be scarcely spotted. According to Gould, the female is a
very shy bird, with a song so sweet that it might almost be mistaken for
that of a canary.

IxsKCTivonous Birds of New South Wales.

' BLUE JAY."

Goracina robusta, Latham.

^s^ii

■^v

Inseotivoeous Birds op New South Wales.

"CATERPILLAR EATER."

Lalage tricolor, Swainson.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

HOODED ROBIN"; "BLACK AND WHITE ROBIN.

MELANODRYAS BICOLOR. Vig. and Horsf.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 55

The Hooded Robin [Petrceca (Melanodryas) hicolor Vig. and Horfs.]
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 283, No. 168 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 133, No. 249.

Black-and-White, or Pied Robin, are names also given to this handsome
little bird. Both are distinctive, as the plumage is all black and white,
without any red on the head or breast, while the black plumage of the
liead and throat forms a regular hood. The old generic name of Melanodryas
used by Campbell. North, and on our plate, has been discai'ded for that of
Petrceca, for in structure and habits this bird should be grouped with these
redbreasts. Hall and Leach both use this generic name.

This robin may be found in open forest country over the length and
breadth o^ Australia, and in favoured localities is a common bird. It is very
active in hunting for insects, catching them on the wing, among foliage, and
on the ground. This bird is somewhat remarkable by reason of its habit of
selecting for its nest a lowly site — such as the top of a stump, or the fork of
.a low sapling. The nest is a typically cup-shaped robin's, composed of bits
of bark or twigs and grass, with the outer surface covered with bits of bark
attached by spiders' web, the whole compactly built and lined inside with
soft materials. The eggs, either three or four in the clutch, vary in colour
from dull-apple to olive-green, sometimes with a clouded band at the apex.

The Yellow-breasted Robin {Eopsaltria australis Latham.)

Gould's Handbook, vol. L, p. 293, No. 175 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 132, No. 326.

The bird pictured in our illustration as the Yellow-breasted Robin is,
strictly speaking, a shrike-robin, and belongs to a different group from
that containing the robin-redbreasts. It was among the first birds noticed
at Sydney Cove, and is figured in White's " Voyage to New South Wales "
(1790), under the name of the Southern Motacilla. It may be noticed that
many of the older naturalists called the different robins flycatchers. Lewin,
in his " Birds of New Holland," figured this one, and called it the Yellow-
breasted Thrush. Gould formed the genus Eopsaltria {Eos dawn, and Psaltria
a. musician), which might be translated as " a singer at dawn," for this bird
and allied species.

The range of this robin is chiefly confined to the thick timber and dense
brush country along the coastal districts of New South Wales and Victoria,
and does not extend far inland. Two species are found in the eastern area
and two in Western Australia.

The Yellow-breasted Robin feeds upon all kinds of small insects, often
Testing quietly on a branch to fly down and snap up a moth or fly on the wing.
She makes her nest towards the end of September or early in October — a nest
which, even compared with those of the other robins, which are all of dainty
craftsmanLship— is a masterpiece in bird architecture. It is cup-shaped, and is
composed of strips of bark and roots, lined with leaves and matted together
with cobwebs, to which are attached lichens and bits of bark over the outer

56 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN' BIRDS.

surface, so that when placed in the fork of a tree its outward surface blend&
with its surroundings. It contains a pair of bright-green eggs speckled all
over with brown. Like other robins, this one does not escape the attention
of lazy mother cuckoos, for the Pallid Cuckoo (Guculus pcdlidus) often places-
her egg in the nest. The unfortunate robin nestlings are then thrown out
of the nest by their sturdy foster-brother and come to an untimely fate.

The Pheasant-coucal or Scrub-pheasant {Centropus phasianus Latham),

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 634, No. 388.

The popular name of Scrub-pheasant is a very unfortunate one for this
curious bird, which has nothing in common with the true pheasant, except
some likeness in coloration of its plumage. By classification and structure it
is a cuckoO; but in its habits it differs from its nearest relations ; for instead
of the hen laying her eggs in the nests of other birds, she constructs a large
dome-shaped nest of her own with an opening on either side, so that her head
sticks out of the front door, and her long tail stands out through the back
entrance. The nest is usually placed in a tuft of long grass carefully con-
cealed from view, and contains from three to five eggs, very round, dull-white^
and as Gould says, "somewhat like those of a Cormorant."

Though the Pheasant-coucal ranges as far south as our Illawarra scrubs^
it is a rare bird until one gets much further north, and most of my own
experiences with it have been in the north Queensland brushes and the-
coastal districts of north-west Australia. Its natural home is in marshy or
swampy land where there is plenty of cover, but it also frequents the banks of
creeks and rivers. Usually found upon the ground when one is travelling
through the bush, they fly up into the nearest tree with a frightened squeak,
and with a series of flying jumps get up to the topmost branches. Their
powerful feet are admirablj' adapted for the life they lead upon the ground,
scratching over the rubbish. They are omnivorous in their diet, and though
chiefly insectivorous nothing comes amiss.

The members of the genus Centropus (which is a compound Greek word
meaning " spine foot," in allusion to the large claw on the hind toe) are a
curious group of birds distributed over the greater part of Africa, India,.
China, and Malaysia to Australia. The typical Indian species is a large
bird over 2 feet in length to the tip of its tail. When describing our species
Stephens called it Cuculus phasianus, but Illiger created the present genus
for an African species, so our bird came under the same heading.

The Orange-backed Wren {Malm us melanocephalus Vig. and Horsf).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 8.33, No. 196.
Red-backed Wren is another name for this handsome little bird, and
Lewin, in his " Birds of New Holland," called it the Scarlet-backed Warbler^
Unlike the Blue Wren, it does not visit our gardens, but frequents the well-
grassed valleys along the mountain sides — usually in pairs, not in small

'^If

Insectivorods Birds of New South Wales.

'THE PHEASANT COUCAL."

Gentropus 'phasianns.
Dark form, male; lighter-coloured, female.

i ^

I/} cc

^ ^ ai

^ Q ^

S CO O

=Q W iz;

o ;^ a
< Is*

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 57

family parties like other wrens. Its rich black tints contrast strikingly with
its orange back, making the adult male a very handsome little fellow. He
has the stupid habit, however, of our Blue Wren, of showing himself off in a
prominent position, a habit often responsible for his undoing should a
Butcher-bird catch sight of his showy coat.

' This bird ranges over the greater part of the southern and eastern portions
of Australia. In the northern parts of Australia its place is taken by a
■closely related species, Malurus cruentatus, which Gould called Brown's Wren,
after one of the officers of H.M.S. Beagle, who collected it at Port Essington,
in the Northern Territory. I met with this species in the grass-land of
north-western Australia, in the vicinity of King's Sound. It is a smaller
wren than the southern one, with the back a deeper rich red.

The Black-headed 8 uperb- warbler is a name also given to this bird, but
the one I have favoured is much less cumbersome as a popular name and
makes acknowledgment, too, of the characteristic and rich colouring of the
back. The nest is of the usual oval domed form with a hole in the side ; it
is constructed of dry grass, lined inside with finer materials, and contains
three or four roundish glossy-white eggs, blotched and spotted with reddish-
brown on the apex.

68 SOME USEFUL AU ST R ALAIN BiRDS.

SECTION III.

Birds of Inland Plains^ Swamps^ Open
Forests, and Scrubs.

In making this division one has to place in it some birds that are equally
at home in the last section, and which are found along the edges of our coastal
forests. All those birds that may be considered typical of the western,
lands, that enliven the open box forests, that live in the giant red-gum trees
that fringe the banks of our inland rivers and swamps, or that police the
scrub on the sand ridges and red-soil flats or the great open grass-covered
plains have been retained in this section. They are as follows : —

Plain-turkey or Bustard White-winged Chough

(Eupodotis australis). {Corcorax 7nelanorha)i,phus)^

Mallee-fowl or Lowan White-browed Babbler

{Leipoa ocellaia). (Pomatorhinus superciliosa)^

Stone Plover or Land Curlew Grey-crowned Babbler

(Burh.nus grallarius). (Pomatorhinus temporalis)^

Black -breasted Plover Apostle-bird [Struthidea cine ea).

(Zonifer tricolor). Sacred Kingfisher {Halcyon sanctus)^

Spur-winged Plover Nankeen Kestrel

(Lobivanellus lobatus). (Cerchneis cencroides).

Straw-necked Ibis Wedge-tailed Eagle

{Carphihis sptmcollis). (Urocetus audax)^

Blue-crane or White-fronted Heson. Brown Tree-creeper

{Notophoyx novce-hollandice). (Climacteris scandens)^

Nankeen Night Heron Orange-winged Nut-hatch

{Nycticorax caledonicus). {Neositta chrysoptera).

Pacific Gull {Gabianus pacificus). Crested Bell-l»ird (Oreoica cristata.}

White-eyed Crow or Raven White-fronted Chat

{Corone australis). {Ephthianwa albifrons).

The Australian Bustard or Plain-turkey (Eupodotis australis Gray).

Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 208, No. 495 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 51, No. 110.

An old cock Bustard in full spring plumage, strutting about over the open
plains looking after three or four of the smaller hens, is the most handsome
and stately of all our birds. The harmonious blend of the pepper-and-salt
plumage, the upright carriage, the sweeping neck plumes and bright yellow
eye keeping keen watch all round, make up a sight to be remembered.

The Bustard is found all over Australia, but migrates from one part of the
country to the other, following its food supplies. In the old days, on the
plains of north-west Victoria, as soon as the grasshoppers made their appear
ance we were sui'e to have wild turkeys in the paddocks within a few weeks.

o

ffi

Q

H
V5

c <

i -^

M t/3

!^ ^

Bq

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS, 59

It is the sole representative of a group of birds (Oti'^a-) that is widely
scattered over the world. A few hundred years ago one species was common
in the south of England, and used to be hunted with greyhounds. Others
are found on the plains of Africa and Asia.

In the breeding season the female makes no nest, but deposits her egg
'(some writers say there are sometimes two) in a depression in the ground or
crab-holey country, or near lignum bushes. The baby turkey, as soon as he
hatches out of the egg, is as cunning as most ground birds, and can look
after himself. Never moving when discovered, he will allow himself to be
picked up and handled, but will run off when placed on the ground.

Concerning the food of the Bustard, I have seen some very curious state-
ments published. Mr. Aflalo, in his " Natural History of Australia," speak-
ing of the Bustard says : " Lives entirely on the open plains, feeding upon
lizards and roots. As a game bird, the Bustard ought to be protected, but a
great deal of nonsense has been written about the great importance of the
Bustard or wild turkey from an insectivorous standpoint. In northern
Victoria, though the wild turkeys used to follow the grasshoppers, they were
■always rare birds, and a flock of a dozen or twenty was a large one ; usually
they were found in a family party of four or five, and on a 600-acre paddock
full of grasshoppers would not make as much impression on the pest as the
-crows or magpies." In Lucas and Le Souef s " Birds of Australia," the
.authoi\s say : '' At times when crammed with grasshoppers, which they are
doing their best to destroy, they fall victims to the stick of the ungrateful
but hungry settler." If the authors mean that the wild turkeys, gorged to
repletion, can be approached and killed with a stick by a hungry selector,
the birds must have deteriorated or be very different birds to those we used
to hunt on the plains of northern Victoria. I have examined the crops of
many Bustards, and in the spring the main part of their food consists of
dandelion heads and other vegetable matter, together with a few centipedes,
ground weevils, beetles, and other insects found on the plains. In the summer,
the crops contained chiefly grasshoppers, but their food was very varied. In
Victoria, in particular, the great insectivorous value of the Bustard has been
very much over-rated — for example, see Mr. Hall's " Useful Birds of Southern
Australia " when dealing with this bird .

The Bustard, like all other large game birds which nest upon the ground,
is bound to disappear with the advance of civilisation, wire fences, cultivation
paddocks, and forest destruction, to say nothing of the introduction of the
fox and other giound enemies. It is our finest game bird, and should be
protected as a game bird, when it would probably increase in time in
uncultivated areas, and be a valuable asset. I have weighed many Bustards
ranging from 12 lb. to 16 lb. in weight, and it is not uncommon to get one
over 20 lb. in weight. From a sportsman's point of view, this bird
always took good hunting, and, if one's luck was out, one might spend all
•day and never get one. Many a day have I spent driving turkeys, which

60 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

is as great an art as their shooting. The suc(3ess of the day's bag depended
not only on the aim of the sportsman, but the skill and judgment of the
driver, who, driving gradually, not towards the feeding birds, but in ever
lessening circles, gradually brought the vehicle with the shooter sitting
behind within range of the watching bird. The moment the trap stopped,
the turkeys were up, and if the horse had been badly trained, and was^
restless, it took a good shot to bag his bird at anything near 100 yards.
On very hot days, however, the wild turkeys were not so active, and had a
very curious habit (particularly if feeding in crab-holey or rough ground) of
" squatting," evidently under the impression they were concealed from the
approaching enemy. They would squat close to the ground, draw the head
and neck down on the body, and if the watcher happened to take his eye off
just before this vanishing trick was effected, it was often very difficult to
locate the exact spot where the game was hidden. Sometimes the trick
would be done on an absolutely bare patch of soil, and the bird would allow
one to get within easy range under the mistaken idea that it was quite safe.

In north-west Australia, in from King's Sound, T have seen Bustards in
comparatively thick scrub land, but in New South Wales and Victoria
they are seldom seen off the plains.

On 17th January, 1919, while at the Government Sheep-fly Experiment
Station near Moree, where wild turkeys were not uncommon in the long
grass, I obtained a bird only about a fortnight old, which one of the
boundary riders caught when it was coming into a dam with its mother to
drink in the evening. This active little creature was for several weeks
kept in a small yard, whei'e it became veiy tame, but frequently uttered a
very plaintive frightened cry if one went near or touched it. It would eat
almost any kind of food, but preferred raw or cooked mea£ cut into small
pieces. At the time of writing (nearly twelve months later) this bird is-
well grown and in our Zoological Gardens.

The Mallee-fowl or Lowan {Leipoa ocellata).

Gould's Handbook, vol. II, page 155, No. 477 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 13, No. 2.

This cu rious bird differs in form and coloration from all the other members-
of the mound-nesting birds known as Megapodes, and is found further south
than any other form of the group, ranging through the north-western
districts of Victoria, central South Australia, and across Western Australia
almost to the coast. The popular name of Mallee-hen or Mallee-fowl defines
it well, as it inhabits all that class of low scrub, dwarfed eucalypts, and other
scrubs known as the Mallee. Under the protection of this it constructs the
remarkable mound nest that attracted the attention of all the early
travellers and naturalists. Gould gave a long and interesting account of
these birds and their mounds in his " Birds of Australia," and was so-

a O

o

c^

C/2

o

^

e

H

J

^

^

■»

fa
O

o

o

w

u.

e

Q

o

UJ

cc

J

p

u

O
0:1

<

>

^

5 UJ

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 61

interested in their curious habits that he first published his records in the
Tasmanian Journal. "Wood, in his " Homes without Hands," gives a some-
what imaginary picture of a party of blackfellows digging out the eggs.
Several writers have remarked upon the survival of these birds in our fauna^
when their nests were so easily found by the natives, and it has been
suggested that the different tribes had some form of protection among
themselves to keep the birds from extinction. Up to the time of the
agricultural settlement of the mallee lands of Victoria, these birds were fairly
common ; and though natives are plentiful, and food supplies not too
abundant, the Mallee-hens hold their own in Western Australia. Giles, in
his " Australia Twice Traversed," says, speaking of the Mount Margaret
district, that the eggs of the Lowan were a great adjunct to their camp fare^
and records collecting seventy of these eggs in two days, in spite of the fact
that wild natives were numerous, and were also digging out the eggs.

The Mallee-hen is about the size of a domestic barnyard fowl, of a uniform
brownish-yellow colour, with the feathers mottled in the centre with light
brown, so that the general colour harmonises with the dull-red and browns
of the soil of the mallee scrub. Standing erect, she is a handsome bird, with
well-developed wings, broad tail, stout legs, and large feet, admirably adapted
for scratching out food and scraping up earth, leaves, and mould, in the
formation of her large, rounded, dome-shaped nest.

The mound nest is constructed in the shelter of the scrub, and when the
whole of the surrounding surface has been swept up, the nest measures about
4 feet in height and 12 feet in diameter at the base. The male and female
share in the work of scraping up the damp Jeaf-mould and sand, and upon
completion of their task open out the centre. The female deposits the egg&
in three circles of four or five eggs each, or a total of fifteen eggs, so that
there are three layers, one above the other, in this wonderful forcing bed.

During the season, the female lays one egg, in the early mornings, every
third day, and covers it with sand and leaf-mould. The eggs are very large
in proportion to the size of the birds, and have very thin shells, of a pink
biscuit-brown tint. As there is such a long interval between the date of
laying of the first and last egg of the clutch, the young chicks come out at
irregular periods ; but the Mallee-hen understands her work, and before the
young birds are expected, opens out her nest, to allow the escape of the
newly-hatched chicks. The baby Mallee-hens are feathered on emergence^
can run and fly, and are able to hunt for their own food ; but the parent
birds feed close by in the scrub, and gather together the nestlings as they
leave the mound into a family party.

The Mallee-hens are insectivorous, and find their food on the ground, sa
that they must do a great deal in keeping down all kinds of ground insects
inhabiting the open forest country.

62 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The Stone Plover or Land Curlew (Burhinus grallarius Latham).
Mould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 210, No. 496 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 51, No. 109.

Thi.s shy, retiring bird is much better known to most people by reason of its
weird melancholy cry or long drawn out, whistle-like note, rather than by
personal observation of the bird itself. The calling of a pair of curlews in
the long winter evening round an isolated homestead or a lonely camp fire
is mournful enough to give the newcomer from the city a fit of the blues ;
but to the true imaginative bushman it is one of the " voices of the night "
that rather appeals to his sense of fitness with the surroundings — " often
striking a chill into the heart of the benighted traveller, for the imitation
of the call of this bird is often a signal whistle from the bushranger to his
mates at night." says the author of " Bush Wanderings."

The birds frequent open box forests and lightly timbered flats, seldom
coming out on the open plains ; and they may often be quite numerous with-
out being seen by the traveller. At the least alarm they stand perfectly
still with the head and neck pointing out, and their grey and brown plumage
blends so closely with the country they frequent that is usually an acci-
dent if one is seen unless it moves. They are, however, always alert, with
their large bright yellow eyes watching the intruder, and are ready to run or
fly as soon as they think they are noticed ; otherwise, they will allow a
person to come quite close, and pass them on the track without moving.

No regular nest is made, but, like the true Plover, the female lays her two
blotched, brown eggs in a slight depression on the ground, where their
ground-tint matches the soil, and does not display them to their enemies.

The curlews are usually found in pairs, except after the nesting season,
when they are found in small family parties ; and in the days when hawks
■were plentiful they suffered much from their attacks. Poispning has killed
out the hawks ; but it has also, when used for i-abbits. caused the death of
many curlews who picked the pollard baits when feeding over the ground
at night. Now, with the introduction of the fox, the enemy of all ground-
nesting birds, there is another change in the balance of nature.

With reasonable protection curlews will hold their own in all open forest
country where settlement is not too dense, and, feeding chiefly at night,
they capture and destroy many insects that are not out in the daytime.
On account of their nocturnal habits they have been introduced into subur-
ban gardens to keep down the slugs and snails, and in this capacity they are
one of the best friends of the gardener.

Our curlew has many popular names, such as the Land Curlew, Stone
Plover, and Norfolk Plover ; but it will always be known to the bushman as
the curlew. It must not, however, be confounded with the Curlew or
Whirabrel of Europe, which, though having a somewhat similar call-note,
is classed in an allied group, and is quite a different looking bird. It is
much larger, more mottled, and furnished with a long slender bill adapted
for picking up water-insects and small crustaceans along the marshy sea
coast.

K
<

UJ

>

>

>•

o

^

-;

t

Q-

C

Q

<

,25 H

'*-^' -^ i^

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 65

The Black-breasted Plover {Zonifer tricolor Vieill).

Gould's Handbook, vol, II, p. 222, No. 502 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 43, No. 81.

This handsome ground bird has a very wide range over Australia, and is
common on the open grassed plains and about the edges of swamps or river
flats. It is usually found in small parties-: of four or five, tripping over
the ground hunting for the insects and small crustaceans found in such
localities, rising with a sharp cry when startled, but seldom flying very far
before again alighting. In the nesting season it is very wary, and if
sitting on the four dark-brown, blotched, top-shaped eggs (simply deposited
in a depression among the grass) the female will creep away at the first
alarm, and flying in front of the intruder, will flutter over the grass pretend-
ing to have a broken wing, or some more serious malady, chattering all the
time as she edges the unwelcome stranger away from her precious eggs.

The coloration of these eggs so closely resembles the surrounding soil that
they are very hard to detect unless the bird is disturbed while sitting upon
them. The nestlings can run as soon as they emerge from the shell, and
their brown and drab suits of down are even more adapted to their
surroundings than the coloration of the eggs. At the first warning cry of
the mother the baby plovers at once scatter among the surrounding grass
and instinctively squat flat down, hardly moving an eyelid, and even on a
bare plain will often successfully fool the inquisitive hunter.

After the nesting season the family parties gather together in small flocks
of a dozen or more, and hunt over the open plains, their rich black, white,
and reddish-brown plumage giving them a very attractive appearance.

Looked upon as game birds by the sportsman out to kill, they were often
shot and added to his bag. but the country resident, however keen a sports-
man among wild duck and larger game, is seldom guilty of shooting at our
useful Black-breasted Plover.

The Spur-winged Plover {LoUvanellue lohatus Latham).

Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 220, No. 501 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 43, No. 80.

The Spur-winged Plover is met with in many parts of Australia ; though
often found in small flocks upon the plains, it is common along the edges of
creeks and swamps, where it obtains much of its food. Here it is often
a serious annoyance to the sportsman, suddenly flying up in front of him,
and with its harsh call-notes warning ducks and teal of his approach.
Many a wild duck has escaped from the game-bag by heeding the warning
cry of the startled Spur-winged Plover.

The habits and methods of nesting of this bird are similar to those of the
smaller Black-breasted Plover, but in appearance they are veiy easily
distinguished by their lighter colour, longer legs, and the curious wattles or
naked growths below the eyes. The remarkable appendage from which
they take their popular name of *' spur-winged," consists of a sharp thorn-like

64 SOME USEFin. ^(JSTEAUAN BIRDS.

projection on the point of the elbow of the wing ; but though the .spur should
be a weapon of offence or defence, the write)' has never seen the birds use it
in any way.

All the plovers are looked upon as game birds in Great Britain, and
plovers' eggs are imported from the Continent. In this country sportsmen
were once accustomed to add them to their bag when other game was scarce,
but under our latest regulations they are protected all the year round in
consideration of their insectivorous habits.

The Straw-necked Ibis [Carphibis (Geronticus) spinicollis Jamieson].

Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 282, No. 538 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 53, No. 113.

In the ibis family we have a very interesting group of large insectivorous
l)irds, the members of which are found in most parts of the world. In
Australia the family is represented by three species, which are to be found
in all the different States. The Glossy Ibis (Plegadts falcinellus) is the
smallest of the three, and, unlike the others, has the whole of the head and
neck feathered. The whole of the plumage is of a uniform chestnut-brown
tint with glossy metallic reflections. Though it is our rarest species, it has a
very wide distribution, being found in England, southern Europe, northern
Africa, across Asia to Australia, and it is also found in marsh lands of
Florida, in the south-east of the United States.

The second is the White Ibis {Ibis molucca) which, though confined to
Australia, New Guinea, aud some of the southern islands of the Malay
Archipelago, is closely related to the White Ibis or Sacred Ibis of Africa,
which was worshipped in ancient Egypt, where it appeared every year from
the interior with the inundation of the Nile delta lands. Many mummies
of these birds have been found in the excavations among" the tombs, and in
the time of the Pharaohs it was a capital offence to kill an ibis. It is said
that when Cambyses, King of Persia, laid siege to the town of Damietta, he
placed a number of Sacred Ibis in front of his soldiers who led the attack,
and that the Egyptian defenders capitulated rather than allow the destruc-
tion of these birds, to such an extent was this veneration carried out in
ancient Egypt.

The common White Ibis has the head bare, beak and legs black, and a few
black plumes in the wings. It is often noticed in pairs about the swamps,
but will congregate in flocks and do a great deal of useful work in destroying
all kinds of insect pests. Though not so numerous in New South Wales as
the Straw-necked Ibis, it ranks vifell up in the list of useful insectivorous birds.

The third species, illustrated in this series, is typical of the family and
well known all over the State as the Black-and-White Ibis, on account of its
general coloration, or the Straw-necked Ib's, because of its remarkable neck
ornamentation, formed of aborted feathers. The shafts of the neck feathers
are produced into slender, yellow-pointed tubes, not unlike the quills of a
porcupine, and, on the old birds, hang down in quite a large bunch. In Tic

gos

o

l«^ o

s

?54

Q
W

mac:

o

o '^

rO

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 65

toria the sportsmen used to call them Pick-axe Geese, on account of their
curiously shaped beak, and also from their somewhat harsh croak or honk,
which is like the call of the wild geese when crossing the plains, flying high
up in the sky and strung out in a wide V-shaped formation. Latham, who
was the first naturalist to describe the bird, called it the New Holland Ibis;
later on Jamie.son gave it the name of Lbis spinicollifi, but Grey placed it in
the genus Geronticus ; this Gould adopted in his large folio work, but he
changed it to the genus Carphibis in his " Birds of Australia." Though
some modern writers retained the generic name Geronticus, later naturalists
dealing with our birds followed Gould, and it is now fixed in the genus
Carphibis.

The iStraw-necked Ibis is one of the best known and most popular of
Australian birds, and if the farmers and squatters do not look upon it as
sacred, in a similar way to the ancient Egyptians, they value it as one of their
most important insectivorous birds. No one in a country district would think
of shooting an ibis. It is not, generally speaking, a coastal visitant, but is
found all over the inland country, being a frequenter in the winter months
of the shores of inland lakes, marshes, and swampy country, where it finds
large food supplies in the freshwater crustaceans, insects, and frogs. In the
early summer months these birds congregate in enormous flocks for the pur-
pose of nesting in the reed beds and swamps of the Lachlan River and other
parts of the Riverina country. Le Souef estimated that in a swamp of about
400 acres in extent, which his party visited in the nesting season in southern
Riverina, there were fully 100,000 ibis in possession. There is hardly any
attempt at nest-making ; the nest is simply a handful of rushes, flags, or grass,
scratched together on the top of the trampled-down vegetation. In the centre
of this is placed usually three, but sometimes four, pale greenish-white eggs.
In these swamps the nests are almost touching, and the whole surface of the
reed-beds is one sheet of eggs like a seagulls' rookery. As the young birds
grow up, but are unable to fly, they are shepherded together by some of the
old birds on the trampled-down lignum and reeds so that they cannot get into
the surrounding water, where, if unwatched, many of them would be drowned.

With the advent of the cutworm plagues in the grass paddocks, and the
hatching-out of the swarms of baby grasshoppers later on in the season, the
ibis flocks, freed from their domestic duties, scatter all over the plains, forest,,
and scrub. Broken up into small flocks of from fifty to several hundred, they
may be seen strutting or walking about in a very leisurely manner feeding
upon these pests, or, later in the day, when fully fed, resting upon dead tree*
or sleeping on fallen logs, where they are so little distux'bed by man that they
take very little notice of anyone passing along the i*oad.

By reason of its large size, its fondness for some of our very worst insect
pests (grasshoppers and cutworms), and its numbers, the ibis is one of the
most valuable insectivorous birds in Australia, and not only should the birds
be protected, but their nesting grounds should be proclaimed sanctuaries, and
no shooting allowed in these areas.
t 97615— C

66 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The White-fronted Heron or Blue-crane {Kotophoyx novce-

hoUandiif Latham).

Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 399, No. 548 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 60, No. 119.

Though correctly-informed persons and naturalists call this bird the
White-fronted Heron, the bushman knows it as tlie Blue-crane. It cannot,
however, be properly placed among the true cranes, which are all large birds
of quite a different build, typically represented in Australia by our Native
Companion.

This bird has an even wider range outside Australia and Tasmania than
the Nankeen Heron, for beyond New Zealand it ranges through the Loyalty
Islands, New Caledonia, New Guinea, and the Moluccas. It is common on
the low sandy beaches of our coast land? as well as around shallow swamps,
lakes, and marshes inland. Always busy, running quickly over the grass
and rushes or wading up to its knees in the mudd}' water, it captures unwary
crayfish, frogs, small crustaceans, and among them the small freshwater
snail that is the host of lie larval fluke before it infests the liver of the
sheep.* On the sand it gets many ground insects, and in the time of locust
plagues lends a hand to the ibis and wood-swallows in destroying these
grass- eating pests.

Its nest is a flat structure made of sticks and a little grass, placed upon
the horizontal branch of a tree usually overhanging the water, and contains
four delicate bluish-green eggs, which in my young days were looked upon as
a prize by any collector of birds' eggs.

Like the Nankeen Heron, this graceful bird adds a charm to the landscape,
but is much more noticeable on account of its active daylight habits. Every-
one who watches a Blue-(U"ane wiil see what a busy useful bird it is as
it engages on its accustomed duties.

The Nankeen Night-heron {Nycticorax caledomcus Latham).
Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 311, No. 557 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 61, No. 123.

This is a common heron found not only all over Australia and Tasmania
but also in New Zealand, and ranging north as far as the Celebes in the
Malay Archipelago.

In the early summer months, on the banks of the Murray River near
Ounbower, I have often roused out a dozen or more from the shelter of
the foliage of the giant red-gums, where, resting with the head and neck
bunched down on their shoulders, they were very easily overlooked in spite
of their size, as long as they remained stationary. When flapping out into
the bright sunlight they appeared to be quite dazed, and soon sought the
nearest shelter.

•Dr. Cobb asserts that the White-fronted Heron devours enormous quantities of
Bulirius, the mollusc which serves as the host of the sheep-fluke. A single snail of this
species will often harbour several hundred of the intermediate forms of the fluke. See
" The Sheep Fluke," by Dr. N. A. Cobb, Agricultural Gazette, July, 1897.

l^-t*-"* ■

i;

en

H O si

!^ a ^

o E ^
S W I

ffl

H

O

Of

04

H

c

H

w

H
O

h

«9

<U

^

>^.

■~ ,

+J

z

o

(S

2tf

c

U

■5

K

«-■

5S

0

H

5
u

<o

C

§

a

13

w

0

z

H

f»

u

e

03

u

■73

u:

_'ii

fl

z

o

o3

<
z

«

CO
T3

15

UJ

c

0)

H

3

^

eg

s

0

O

o

5 s

2-0

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 67

They are usually found along the banks of rivers or in the vicinitj '^f
swamps and lagoons. Just at dusk they fly out of their resting-place, and
their harsh croak can be heard all through the night as they hunt along the
banks or wade out into the mud hunting for crayfish, small frogs, crustaceans,
and insects, their lance-shaped beaks being admirably adapted for pouncing
upon all kinds of small fry. There has been, and still is, I believe, a
small colony of Nankeen Herons in the brush in the old garden at Macleay
House, Elizabeth Bay, from which they fly out in the evening and hunt over
the foreshores of the bay through the night. "When nesting inland they
build a stout nest of sticks in the larger trees among the swamps and
lagoons, but on the coastal waters much less care is taken in the construction
of their nests, and they are much smaller and more flimsy. The eggs, four
in number, are a light bluish-green, and the young nestlings for some time
after they are hatched out are covered with dark down, which is spotted and
striped with white. As they lose their baby clothes, however, they don
the rich nankeen brown of the adults.

With the rich contrasting tints of back and breast, and the beautiful
white occipital head plumes and bright yellow eyes, the Nankeen Heron is a
handsome as well as a useful night hunter, and on account of both its value
and its beauty should be protected from the pot-hunter and the
thoughtless boy.

The Pacific Gull {Gabiamis pacificus Latham).
Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 385, No. r)96 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 41, No. 73.

The Pacific Gull is common along the coasts of Australia and Tasmania ;
this bird and the smaller Silver Gull (Larius novcB-hollandw), are the
scavengers of our sands along the sea shore, devouring all kinds of dead
animal matter cast up by the waves.

These useful and handsome birds should be most carefully protected, not
only on account of their useful work on sea and land, but also because of the
added beauty and interest their presence give to the sea-side resorts. Anyone
shooting seagulls from the deck of a steamer or on our beaches should bo
promptly dealt with, and bird-lovers will agree that such a person should be
treated without the option of a fine.

The Pacific Gull is the larger bird, having a total length of about 25 inches,
while the Silver Gull barely measures 17 inches. They usually construct
substantial open grass nests on the reefs and small islands along the coast,
and place them upon the ground sheltered among the grass tussocks and low
shrubs. The eggs, averaging two or three in number, are olive-green, and
marked with dark-brown blotches. The young birds are not fully plumaged
until the third year, according to Campbell, being clothed in a dull brown or
mottled grey coat, which is afterwards replaced with the beautiful white
feathers of the adults. The Silver Gulls live and breed more in small colonies,
sometimes collecting, in stormy weather, in large numbers in the sheltered

€8 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

inlets and harbours. Their nests are often so plentiful as to form regular
rookeries on the islands ; they are constructed of dry grass and sea-weed^
and contain from two to three greenish olive-tinted eggs covered with black
or yellowish-brown markings, but both the ground colour and markings are
very variable. The Silver Gull has a wide range along the coasts of Australia,,
Tasmania, and New Caledonia, and also has the uncommon habit, for a sea
bird, of going far inland to lakes arid swamps, where it seems perfectly at
home with the wild fowl. I remember first seeing these birds at Lake
Charm, in the Swan Hill district, Victoria, about 170 miles from the
nearest ocean beach. Kept as garden pets Silver Gulls become very tame,,
and hunt over the ground for noxious insects, snails, and slugs.

The Crow {Corone australis Gould).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 475, No. 290 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 188, No. 389.

The family Corvidce comprises a number of large birds, popularly known
as Ravens, Crows, and Choughs, which at one time were all included in the
typical genus Corvus. They are distinguished by a stout compressed beak^
straight at the base, arched towards the point, and straight at the edges.
The wings and tail are long and graduated, the feet powerful, with the
metatarsus exceeding in length the middle toe of the foot. The sexes are
similar in colour, usually black and more or less glossed with green or purple
tints, except in the Jackdaw and Hooded Crow. Representatives of the
genus are found in Europe, Asia, Africa, North America as far south as.
Mexico, and Australia. Thus widely distributed over the world, they can
stand all conditions of climate from the snow-clad mountains of Northern
Scotland to the sun-dried plains of central Australia.

Though the Australian bushman looks upon our birds as the one species
under the popular and comprehensive name of Crow or Carrion Crow,,
among ornithologists there has always been a considerable amount of un-
certainty and difiFerence of opinion regarding their classification. In describ-
ing our species, Gould, in his " Birds of Australia," called it Corvus coronoides,.
but in his Handbook issued later on he changed it to Corvus australis,
White-eyed Crow, and, though noting the Hazel-eyed Crow, considered
it only a variety of the typical form. He says : " It is intermediate
in size, in the development of the feathers of the throat, in its voice, in
many parts of its economy, between the Carrion Crow and the Raven in our
island (England), and it is difficult to say to which of these species it is
most nearly allied."

Since Gould's time, modern ornithologists have decided that though the
specific differences are vague, we have not only two species — -the Crow and
Raven— but they belong to different genera. Campbell, in his " Nests and
Eggs of Australian Birds," says there still exists some uncertainty about
identifying or separating our two species of crow, or the Crow from the
Raven. But if the chief points as first mentioned by Dr. Ramsay as far back

About one-third natural size.

INSECTIVOKOUS BiKDS OF New SoUTH WaLES.

"WHITE=EYED CROW OR RAVEN."

Coroiic austrulis.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 69

as 1865, and afterwards defined by Dr. Sharpe, are noted, the difficulties of
identification vanish : " The Raven {Corone australis) is the larger bird, has
eyes white in the adult, wears conspicuous long feathers on the throat, and
lias the base of the feathers in the hind part of the neck and back of a dusty-
l)rown or sooty colour. The true Crow (^Corvus coronoides) has white eyes
likewise, but the base of the feathers is snow-white." Later on, however,
Campbell says : " As both have white eyes, the only sure method is by
handling the birds and deciding by the coloration of the feathers of the
neck and back. If they are brown or sooty it is a Raven, if white it is a
€row."

In the latest handbook on our birds, (Messrs. Le Souef and Lucas), the
-authors define them as follows: — "The Crow [C ytvus coronoides) is "the
Hazel-eyed Crow ; the Raven {Corone australis) is the White-eyed Crow " ;
but they at the same time say, in describing the latter, " the iris white or
dark brown." One could understand ornithologists making two species
{though this is doubtful when they breed together), but to place them in
■different genera seems to point to the fact that some genera exist in name
only. There is also a third species described under the name of Small-
billed Crow [Corvus bennetti), peculiar to South Australia and New South
Wales, allied to the Carrion Crow, but smaller. In these notes I propose
to follow the bushman and treat them all just as crows ; whether they
have white or brown eyes, or the down on the feathers of the back and neck
is dark-coloured or white, it makes no diiFerence to their habits.

The value or otherwise of crows in Australia is one of those debatable
subjects that is a perennial source of correspondence from their admirers and
■enemies in the stock and pastoral newspapers. At the monthly meetings of
the members of the Pastures Protection Boards, the business of paying a
standard bonus for crows' heads', and the price to be fixed per head, is
frequently a topic for heated discussion, while the following statement is
extracted from the Presidential address at an annual meeting of the Sheep
Breeders' Association in Sydney : "The crow is also again becoming very
troublesome, and how to deal with him is a question which divides many
minds, some being for wholesale destruction, others for preservation because
of his preying on vermin."

Though there are large numbers of stockowners who consider that crows
are not as black as thpy look and are more useful than harmful, and take no
active measures against them, others go to the length of protecting them on
account of their value in clearing up carrion and assisting to keep in check
the caterpillar and grasshopper plagues. On the other hand, the majority of
the coastal, as well as some of the inland sheep-owners, wage unceasing
Tvarfare against the crow, and in the annual returns issued by the Stock
Branch of the New South Wales Department of Agriculture for the year
ending June, 1915, the sum of £2,862 2s. 3d. was given as the amount paid
by the officers of the Pastoral Boards of New South Wales for the heads of
109,344 crows.

70 SOME USEFUL AUSTEALIAX BIRDS.

Many years ago I had opportunities of studying the habits of crows on the
plains between Echuca and Kerang, when looking after ewes and lambs in
times of drought in Victoria. I held no brief for the crow, and hated that
black, cruel, devilish bird, when I found the fallen ew^e with her eyes picked
out and the helpless lamb standing beside her, with holes pecked in its tail.
One would often see a pair of particularly cunning crows separating a young
lamb from its bewildered mother, the first crow flying beside the scared,
running lamb, every now and then flapping its wings against the poor little
beast, while the second crow would deliberately fly up behind and peck it on
the rump to hurry it away from the mob. At other times one would come
upon a lost lamb on the plains with a crow flapping round, and every now
and then giving a tug to its tail to try and pull it to the ground. The
sheep-owners will tell you that a sheep or lamb pecked by crows, once down,,
seldom lives, and attribute it to the fact that crows are carrion feeders and
cause blood-poisoning. Of course, in bad times with starving stock, many
of the old ewes and lambs that get down would never recover, even in the
absence of the crows, but such facts do not have much weight with the sheep
man in the circumstances described.

The farmer dislikes crows quite as much as the squatter, and seldom has a
good word to say for them. If he runs sheep, he generally has more culls
and old sheep in proportion to the size of his flock, and they are the ones
that suSer from the crows. The crow is also an expert at stealing eggs, and
his depredations in the fowl-yard are only too well known by the housewife,
I used to visit a homestead on the plains in Victoria, where three crows
formed a syndicate to raid the fowl nests in the stable, where they had the
advantage of open gable-ends, giving a ready means of ingress and retreat.
Their method was as follows: The first crow flew into a she-oak tree overlooking
the house and stable, and finding all quiet, evidently sent back word, for the
second crow flew up and took observations while resting on the roof of the
stable ; a fresh signal was sent back, when the third crow flew up, hopped
down into the manger, snapped up the egg before the hen had finished
^ackling, and flew away down the paddock, followed by the two scouts.
Many traps and ambushes were laid for the egg-stealers, but as far as I
know my friend never managed to get the best of them.

The crow is accused, probably not without reason, of destroying the eggs
and nestlings of smaller birds, and it is quite evident that other birds do not
trust him, for at nesting time if a crow comes into the tree, all the small
birds join together to hustle and drive him away.

Having given some account of the bad habits of the crow, I will now
describe some of his good traits. It is worthy of note that the majority of
the squatters who wage war upon the crow belong to the coastal and
eastern portion of the State, while it is the men of the west who consider
that the work of scavenging and killing blow-fly maggots and other insect
pests outweighs any damage this bird does to their flocks. While there is no

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 71

question as to the damage the crows, when numerous, do at lambing time,
particularly in a bad season when ewes and lambs are weak and starved,
during the. other portion of the year in the same districts the crow acts as an
effective scavenger in cleaning up offal, and destroys many noxious insects,
hunting over the paddocks like the magpie, and working very busily when a
cutworm army or a locust swarm appears in the district.

In the west the crow does yeoman service in the destruction of dead
carcases. I have seen many dead sheep so devoured that only the skin and
bones remained, half of the skin being almost intact ; dead rabbits are torn
to bits, and the maggots destroyed that would otherwise have entered the
ground and escaped. When a dead horse or bullock is skinned it is the
crows that set to work to strip the bones. In confirmation of this, I would
append the following remarks, made by well-known pastoralists, in reply to a
circular sent out for information regarding the crow and the blow-fly pest : —

Bourke. — " I myself do not think that the crow is really harmful. I have
always regarded the crow as a good friend, in spite of the fact that he some-
times kills a weakling lamb, and perhaps hastens the death of a weak sheep.
I believe the first obvious step to take in mitigating the blow-fly pest is to
stop the destruction of the crow. He kills many rabbits, is the most effective
enemy of grasshoppers in certain stages, and is the best of scavengers. I
have no doubt he is the best natural enemy of the blow-fly."

Condoholin. — ^"Consider the crow far and away the best scavenger and
destroyer of maggots. The magpie comes next." .

Coonamble. — "The crow is the only bird that I know of that would do
any good. He would destroy the carcase by eating and pulling it about.
If we had the millions of crows that have been killeij, we would not be
troubled with the blow-^y."

Canonbar. — " I am inclined to protect the crow, except during lambing
time. They do much good."

"Crowfoot," writing in the Pastoral Review upon "Bird Friends," says: —
" I must not close without putting in a good word for the crow. He is a
friend in disguise, notwithstanding his cruelty to lambs and weak sheep.
If they would only leave the ' woollies ' alone, they would be as sacred as
the ibis and kingfisher in the flock-owner's mind, but as it is ' no license '
is bracketed against the name of crow. If all the locusts' eggs, grubs,
caterpillars, and food that maggots love to dwell in were balanced against
the lambs and grown sheep crows destroy, the balance would be strongly in
their favour."

In conclusion, I would quote Mr. W. E. Abbott, of Wingen, who has
always been a firm friend of the crow. After telling how he has found the
remains of dead sheep picked clean by the crows, he says : " It seems to me
that one crow with its unequalled sense of sight and smell and power of
locomotion, would be worth more than 100 men, whose work could not be

72 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

supervised (in destroying dead carcases). The 100 men would cost at least
.£200 a week, and a crow would keep himself to a small extent on eggs or
chickens, and a few weak lambs or old sheep in times of drought."

The bushman, while he is interested in the knowing ways of the cosmo-
politan crow, does not particularly love that bird, but in his wanderings
comes across him in all parts of the continent. It wakens him with its
mocking mournful cry when sick and weary in his lonely camp. If he
happens to get lost in the scrub, hunting for his horses, away from*water,
the crows appear, and the inflections in their call seem to distinctly change.
No longer is the sound a sharp clear caw-caw — the notes are long and drawn
out, seeming to the bewildered traveller to say in evil tone, "When are you
going to die — die?"

Many are the stories told round the camp, regarding the wisdom of the
crow — how when an inquisitive crow arrives at a camp where the traveller
is resting under the trees apparently asleep, it will pick up a bit of dry bark
in its beak, and flyina; up into the gum-tree, drop it on the face of the
sleeper to see if he is really asleep or only shamming, before it ventures to
come around and pick up the scraps.

The outback bushman will tell you he has seen a crow when it has dis-
covered the unprotected eggs in an emu's nest among the saltbush, hunt
round for a stone, pick it up in its claws, and hovering over the nest, drop
the stone among the eggs, and thus secure an ample dinner. This story may
be quite correct — there is very little a wary old western crow does not know
■ — but it lacks confirmation.

In conclusion, it will be s^en that, like other of our insectivorous birds, the
crow has a dual character. While he is one of our most useful insectivorous
birds, and by far the best cleaner-up of ofial and carrion in Australia, and
taking his work all over the State, does far more good than harm, yet he
may become a very sei'ious local pest. This usuall}'^ comes about through
an undue increase in their numbers in a certain district, and the consequent
failure of their food supplies. Under a properly adjusted bird protection
act, the crow, while enjoying the protection he merits in his own district,
could easily be proclaimed a pest when he begins his a^'tack upon lambs and
lambing ewes in the distinct where he is doing the damage.

The White-winged Chough or Black Magpie {Corcorax melanorhamphus

S^ieill).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 47, No. 288 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 189, No. 391.
This bird is known under several different names. In the open forests of
northern Victoria it used to be called the Black Magpie, or the Chattering
Jay, both of which give one some idea of the bird.

It is not a coastal bird, but is found in open forest land and ranges in
to the interior, where, family parties of from five to a dozen or more
scatter over the ground, turning over bits of birk, sticks, and leaves as

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

"THE WHITEWINGED CHOUGH"

(The Black Magpie or Chattering Jay).
Corcorax melanorhamphus .

\

Insectivorous Birps of New South Wales.

" BABBLER."

Ppmatostomus superciliosKSy Vig. and Hors.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 73

they move along. Its curious, harsh chattering cry, with a mournful
wailing note, is quite unlike that of any other bird of the forest. When dis-
turbed it flies up into the trees, its jet black plumage showing up the largo
white patch in the centre of the wing, which is hidden when at rest. Its
somewhat large tail seems to overbalance it as it settles on a branch,
and its bright red eyes give it a very alert look as it peers down at
jou from the branches above.

I was first acquainted with the Black Magpie in the forest covering
the low granite Terrick and Mount Hope Ranges in northern Victoria,
and have met the birds in many parts of western and norbhern New
South Wales lately, all along the Barwon River. They are well known
in South Australia and Queensland.

Their nesting habits are remarkable, for they are among the few large
birds that use clay for making their nests. These are constructed like a
rounded basin, nearly 9 inches in diameter and slightly over 6 inches in
depth. The clay used in their construction is usually matted together with
grass stalks, and well lined with feathers. The number of eggs laid is
variable, ranging from five to eight, and they are dull-white, thickly blotched
with dull-slate colour and olive-brown. The nesting time is from August
to December. In its native state the Black Magpie seldom leaves the open
forest or river banks to which its hunting is confined, and where a flock must
destroy an enormous number of insects every year.

The White-browed Babbler (Pomato/hinus superciliosa Vig. and Horsf.)

Mould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 482, No. 294 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 131, No. 274.
The White-browed Babbler is found all over the inland portion of the
southern half of Australia and ranges into northern Queensland and the
Northern Territory. Whenever a traveller pitches his camp where there is
timber and water about, he is sure to be inspected in the early morning by
a, family party of these fussy, chattering, restless birds. Their call-note can
be translated into " Follow me, follow me"; and as they frequently fly one
after the other, the bushman commonly knows them as " Follow me." They
are handsome birds, with slender heads, bright eyes, a white line above the
eyes, and large tails. They never seem to be at rest or to stop hunting over
the ground for insects. If one gives a call, off they go one after the other,
to fly into a tree, run up and down the branches and chatter, and then
suddenly to cluster together, flutF out their feathers and scatter again.
When on one occasion camped on a creek near Moree, we had a party that
used to fly up to our tent regularly every morning just after daylight;
they would often chase each other between the tent and the fly above, to
give us their morning greeting, and to pick up the stray moths that were
sheltering there.

74 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

The nests of these birds are placed in exposed positions in gum trees, and
are large domed structures formed with dried sticks. The basal portion is a
rounded basin with a stouter portion built up behind and projecting on the
aides and above, thus forming a rounded i-oof over the entrance into the nest
on the side. They often build .several nests in the same clump of trees, and
the community take an interest in each other's work, even if they do not
actually assist each other in the building. The interior of the nest is deeply
lined with feathers and other soft material, and contains four light-brown
eggs clouded with darker brown and purple, streaked with fine hair-like
lines running round the egg, but sometimes more marbled.

The Grey-crowned Babbler {Pomatorhinus temporalis Vig. and Horsf.).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 479, No. 292 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 130, No. 273.

Like the species just described, the Grey-crowned Babblers have a wide
range over the south and eastern portion of Australia, from Queensland
through New South Wales and Victoria, into South Australia. They are
gregarious, travelling about in small flocks of about a dozen or more,,
following each other and having a similar chattering call to that of the
previous species. They have been overloaded with popular names — most of
them (such as Chatterer and Cackler) suggestive of their call-notes, some
(the Hopper and Jumper) on account of their curious movements, and some
(like Yahoo, Happy Jack, and Apostle-bird) on account of their gregarious
habits. Some enthusiastic Victorian bird-man wanted to have the name
Codlin-moth Eater attached to this bird, because an orchardist near Summer-
ville found them in an apple orchard, presumably looking for codlin-moth
grubs. Anyone who knows the forest-loving habits of these birds, and the
peculiarities of the codlin-moth, would not expect to obtain much relief from
the pest by their casual presence in the orchard. They are insectivorous
birds ; but they feed upon small beetles or larvae found under the dead bark
on tree trunks, or under the cow-dung or bits of bark and wood they turn,
over on the ground.

The Grey crowned Babbler makes a large nest, similar to that of the
White-browed Babbler, with overhanging sticks above the opening. It is
placed in the fork of a tree, and often two or three nests are near each other.
The number of curious, dark-brown, hair-streaked eggs in the clutch varies
so much that some collectors state that ten or more eggs may be found in one
nest, and that two or three birds lay their eggs together.

The Apostle-bird {Slruthirha cinerea Gould).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 472, No. 289 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 188, No. 390.
Those quaint gregarious noisy birds are to be found all over the open forest-
and scrub lands of the inland portion of New South Wales, ranging south
and north through Queensland into the Northern Territory. The first
district I noted them in was near Wagga, but I have never seen them irfc
similar country in Victoria.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

"THE GREY=CROWNED BABBLER."

F()))iatorhinus tcin poraliK, Vig'. iV Horsf.

"THE APOSTLE BIRD."

Sfruthidea cinerea, Gould.

Insectivorous Birds of Neav South Wales.

"SACRED KINGFISHER."

Ealcyon sanctus, Vig. & Hors.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 75

Struthidea cinerea is the sole representative of this genus peculiar to Aus-
tralia, and a species, says Gould, that is one of the most anomalous in our
avifauna. He remarks upon the curious short, blunt, formation of the bill,
and suggests that it is well adapted for extracting seeds out of the cones of
the desert cypress pine. Though in southern Riverina this bird was at one
time known under the popular name of Pine-pigeon, it was not on account
of its food habits, but because of its general occurrence in the sand ridges
clothed with cypress pine. Though these birds are seed-eating as well as
insectivorous, I have never seen them eating pine seeds, and doubt if any
bird would eat them unless starving.

One of the most unsuitable popular names ever given to a bird is that of
the Grey Log-jumper, given by several popular writers to this bird and
perpetuated in Lucas and Le Souef's " Birds of Australia." Quite a number
of birds are known under the names of Apostle-bird, Twelve Apostles, and
Happy Family in different parts of the country ; but our friend goes by the
first-mentioned all through its western range. I think that the name
fits it, for these birds are very often in flocks of ten or twelve, confer-
ring together in what might possibly be the apostolic manner. At all camps,,
particularly where horses are fed, a flock of Apostle-birds will come round
sometime during the day, chattering and scolding away at each other, and
even trying to peck holes in the bags of chafi" and grain; A party of twelve
once attached themselves to our camp at Yarrawin, Brewarrina ; they
hopped about in front of our dining tent at meal times, and picked up scraps
thrown to them, even coming under the seats for crumbs. One, the head of
the party probably, frequently stood up against a post a short distance off,,
and several of the others took bits of bread and meat and put them into his
mouth. We cyanided a large mount-ant's nest close to the tent, and broke
the surface with a pick ; our Apostle-birds spent many busy hours scratching
up the remains of the nest and eating the dead pupal ants. Very often,,
when Ave were camping out in the scrub for our midday lunch, a flock of
these birds would come flying up and perch on a branch just above our
heads, sitting side by side, chattering and fluttering their feathers as they
peered down at us. As soon as we moved away they would come down and
clear up all crumbs and scraps. This bird has the curious habit, shared by
the Magpie-lark, and the Chattering Jay, of constructing a solid, stout,
circular clay nest upon a stout limb of a gum-tree. In this she deposits four
white eggs, blotched with reddish-brown and purplish -grey.

The Sacred Kingfisher {Halcyon sanctus Vig. and Horsf.).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 128, No. 63 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 106, No. 223.
This is one of the kingfishers that, though sometimes found in the vicinity
of creeks, is hardly a fisherman, for he is more often miles away from water
in open forest or scrub, where his chief food supply is ground game such as-
small lizards, moths, beetles, and ants. Gould says that in the vicinity of
salt marshes this bird feeds upon small crabs and other crustaceans.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

This species has a wide range over the whole of Australia and Tasmania,
but in the winter migrates into the northern districts of New South Wales
and Queensland. Outside Australia it is found in New Guinea, the Solomons,
New Hebrides, New Caledonia, and the Malay Archipelago.

Though not so brilliantly tinted as the little Azure Kingfisher on the river
bank the Sacred Kingfisher is a striking little bird, with greenish-blue cap and
■coat, white collar, and buff waistcoat. Its nest is made in various situations
adapted to the locality in which its owners have taken up their quarters,
such as a hollow spout in a branch of a gum-tree, or a hole drilled into a
decayed bole where there is a " negro head " white-ants' nest on the tree
stem. A cavity is excavated in the side of the nest and the eggs are laid on
the floor of decayed wood. The eggs, four or five in number, are very round,
like those of most kingfishers, and pure-white. When nesting the birds
are very pugnacious, and often have to fight the big monitor lizards, which
eat their eggs and nestlings. At such times the birds' angry call-note is
easily recognised.

In earlier works this bird was known as Toderhamphus ftanctus ; but later
authorities placed it in the typical genus Halcyon, which is the old classical
name of the kingfisher. The Oreeks looked upon the kingfisher as a bird of
good omen, who built her nest on the crest of the ocean wave, wliich had to
keep smooth while she was nesting — lience " halcyon days." The feathers of
the kingfisher were also treasured by them as a charm or amulet.

The Naikeen Kestrel {Cerchmis cencroides Vig. and Horsf.).
Gould's Handbook, vol I, p. 35, No. 13 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 83, No, 173.

This is one of the smallest of our hawks, and before settlement destroyed
the hunting grounds of our birds of prey it was a very common sight to see
several hovering over the plain, their wings moving so rapidly that they
appeared to be almost stationary.

The farmer is very prone to regard all hawks as enemies of ♦^■he fowl-yard,
and under this impression has shot many of this species, but the 1 have
never known this hawk to meddle with chickens, though the Sparrow-hawk,
■which is about the same size, often makes a raid on the poultry-yard and
<^rries off a young chicken. The food of the Nankeen Kestrel is chiefly small
grass lizards, young snakes, and grasshoppers when swarming on the plains.
Many years ago, when riding across the Terrick Plains in Northern Victoria,
I saw a pair of Nankeen Kestrels hovering in the air in their characteristic
attitude with a long streamer hanging from the claws of one of the birds ;
while watching them the object dropped from the hawk, and riding up I
found lying on the grass a young brown snake, over eighteen inches in length,
battered and dead.

This hawk, though it often occupies the deserted nests of crows and
magpies, frequently lays its four or five rather rounded, reddish-brown eggs,
blotched with darker brown, in the hollow spout of the overhanging branch

Wl\

it',

About one-third natural size.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

"NANKEEN KESTREL."

Cerclineis (Tin mm cuius) cencroides.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 77

of a gum-tree. I once had such a nest under observation on the Murra7
swamps from the time the eggs were laid until I carried off the almost
fledged nestlings. The tree was low, and the projecting branch broad where
the end had broken off, so that the end was like a stove-pipe with plenty of
decayed wood on the floor, and among this the eggs were laid. It was.
possible to lie along this limb and to look into the hollow, and even to handle
the bright-eyed savage little Kestrels, who would strike out with their talons
when very small. As the nesting place was on the daily route, many
visits were paid during the upbringing of the family, and nearly always the-
floor of the nest contained portions of grass snakes, slow-worms, or lizards ~
once or twice the feathers of a nestling Magpie-lark suggested that the food
supplies had not run short. In captivity the nestlings ate meat quite
naturally, and when placed in an aviary, where in the adjoining compart-
ment were some doves, one of them tried to seize the doves' wings when they
came too close to the partition.

At the present time the Nankeen Kestrel is appearing again on the open
timbered plains, and in the New England district during a day's ride one may
often notice half a dozen or more of these graceful birds flying round or
resting upon a dead branch, the white, grey, brown, black, and cinnamon
tints being harmoniously blended into the nankeen tints that give this little
hawk its popular and appropriate name. As this bird, unlike many of our
birds of prey, always kills it own food, and does not touch carrion, it has not
suffered from the deadly poison cart and dingo baits.

As evidence of its value as an insectivorous bird it may be mentioned that
Lucas and Le Soeuf, in " Birds of Australia," state that the food consists of
lizards and insects, while Campbell states that " the Nankeen Kestrel is almost
insectivorous in diet, and has another prominent virtue in that it kills small
snakes."

The Wedge-tailed Eagle {Urocetus audax Latham).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 8, No. 1 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 81, No. 158.

This is one of the largest eagles in the world, measuring from 7 to 8 feet
from tip to tip of the outspread wings. It is therefore much to be regretted
that the popular name of Eagle-hawk should have been given to it by our
early settlers. The Wedge- tailed Eagle has a wide range over Tasmania and
Australia, is a keen hunter, and, under natural conditions, captures and kills
wallabies and other marsupials, flying often at a great height and then
swooping down upon its prey. These birds have regular beats, as can be
seen from the size of their nests, which are usually built in the fork of a tall
gum-tree, and are added to every year — they often contain a dray-load of
stout sticks. The hollowed-out centre contains a pair of dark mottled eggs,
or a pair of bright-eyed, fierce-taloned babies.

The Wedge-tailed Eagle is frequently charged with killing lambs, and not
without cause at times ; but only certain starved eagles driven from their
hunting ground aie such culprits. The natural food of this eagle is ground

SOME USKFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS.

game and freshly-skinned or killed animals. In a nest examined near Uralla
I found the remains of three hares, one opossum, two rabbits, and the skins
of two fox cubs about a foot long, and in this case there were plenty of
lambing ewes in the paddock where the birds were nesting. When once
seen, this great bird, with its blackish-brown plumage, edged along the
feathers with pale brown, cannot be mistaken for any other species, and,
under ox'dinary conditions on the western stations, they become comparatively
tame, and take very little notice of man. There is no reason why, where
birds like our great eagle and the allied hawks are doing no harm, they
should not have the benefit of protection laws on account of their value as
scavengers. It is a very simple matter to place them on the black list in
every district where they are found killing lambs or poultry, and destroy all
those that have acquired these bad habits.

The Brown Tree-creeper (Climacteris scandens Tem.).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 598, No. 366 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 155, No. 331.

All through the open forest country of Queensland and the southern half
of Australia, particularly along the river gums and open box forests, you will
find this curious little reddish-brown bird flitting from tree to tree, generally
alighting on the base of the stem and running up it to the branches. When
flying, the light reddish markings on the wings are very conspicuous. On
the ground its mode of progression is by a series of hops. It is a friendly little
bird about one's camp. We had numbers of them round our Experiment
Station n'^ar Hay, which was between the river gums and an open box forest
running out into the plain beyond ; such country is the kind they love.

It is a busy, insectivorous bird, catching insects both on the ground and
on tree trunks, and utters a sharp, shrill cry as if frightened when startled
as it is running up a tree trunk.

The nest of these birds is of soft hair, feathers, or wool. In the Murray
frontages, when opossums were plentiful, the little builders used to pick fur
from the sleeping opossum and carry it down into the hollow stem or branch
in which they had formed their nesting places ; here they would deposit two
reddish eggs, thickly blotched with reddish-brown.

The Orange- winged Nut-hatch {Neositta chrysoptera Swains.).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 609, No. 373 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 153, No. 328.

The Orange-winged Nut-hatch was originally described in the old genus
SitteJla, which contains the European nut-hatches. Campbell lists seven
species described from Australia. This one, typical of the group, has a wide
range from Queensland, through New South Wales and Victoria into South
Australia, and it inhabits the open forest country.

These birds are gregarious, forming small family parties up to about eight
in number, running about over the limbs of the trees and twisting about
among the foliage hunting for insects, spiders, homoptera, small beetles, and

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

"BROWN TREECREEPER."

CUmacteris scandens, Temm.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

" ORANGEWINGED TREERUNNER. "

Neositta chryRopiera, Latham.

Insectivorous Birds of New South Wales.

" BELL=BIRD. "

Oreoica crista fa, Lewin.

SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 79

larvae, most of which are probably found under the loose scaley bark on the
tree trunks. They have a quick short flight from tree to tree, and do not
travel long distances ; when flying, the orange markings on the wings stand
-out from the otherwise dull reddish-brown plumage. Dr. George Bennett,
who wrote a great deal upon his personal observations on Australian birds in
his " Gatherings of a Naturalist," describes (and gives a wood-cut of) the
nest and eggs of the Orange-winged Nut-hatch. The nest is a very dainty
structure, cup-shaped, with a slender base blending into the foundation on
the tree, and built up so that it fits into the fork and against the branch. It
is comprised of spiders' webs and cocoons, with the outer surface coated with
bits of bark placed on the sides to fit in with the formation of the bark of
the branch. The nest is deep and lined with soft material. The eggs consist
of three in a clutch, and are greyish-white, blotched and spotted with slate-
^rey and sepia.

It seems a great pity that when a bird can be named from its family group
like the Orange-winged Nut-hatch that our bird-men should have adopted
such an indecisive name as Orange-winged Tree-runner,

The Crested Bell-bird {Oreoica cristata Lewin).

Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 231, No. 131 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 151, No .321.

This bird has an extended range right across Australia from east to west,
but is not found in Tasmania. It is non-migratory, and is found in pairs all
over the open forest and scrub country inland, but nowhere in numbers. It is a
rather large, active, scrub bird, feeding and living chiefly upon the ground,
where it finds most of its food — such as seeds, beetles, and grubs. When
disturbed it flies upward into the adjacent trees.

Gilbert sent Gould the following description of the notes of this remarkable
bird, which he said was a perfect ventriloquist : " At first its note commences
in so low a note that it seems as if at a considerable distance, and then
gradually increases in volume until it appeal's over the head of the wondering
hearer, the bird that utters it being all the while on the dead part of a tree,
perhaps not more than a few yards distant. Its motionless attitude renders
its discovery very difficult. It has two kinds of song, the most usual of
which is a running succession of notes, or two notes repeated together rather
slowly, followed by a repetition three times rather quickly, the last note
resembling the sound of a bell from, its ringing tone ; the other song is
pretty nearly the same, only that it concludes with a sudden and peculiar
fall of two notes."

The Crested Bell-bird's nest is cup-shaped, deep, and composed of strips of
bark and leaves, lined inside with softer material. It contains three, four,
and sometimes five bluish-white eggs, blotched with dark olive-green, and in
some specimens almost with black. Campbell records Barnard's observations
that in north Queensland the birds have the habit of placing hairy cater-
pillars in and around the nest. From his description the writer thinks that

80 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BlIWS.

these hairy caterpillars are the larvje of bag-shelter moths, often veiy common
in the scrub country, where they defoliate the wattle trees. It is probable
that these are the cast skins, and not the caterpillars themselves.

The little Bell-bird {Manorhina melanopkrys), with its musical sharp
" clink, clink," is quite a different bird ; it is confined to forest belts near
the coast, and is very local in its range. It is a little olive-green and golden-
yellow honey-eater, and lives in small communities in the tops of the gum-
trees.

The White-fronted Chat (Ephthianura alhifrons Jardin and Selb.).
Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 374, No. 229 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 133, No. 281.
A denizen of our open plains and often numerous along the edges of water-
courses and lignum swamps, this semi-gregarious little bird has a wide range
over Australia and Tasmania, and though in the south, migratory, it is to be
found all the year round in some parts of the State. Providing water is
obtainable, it inhabits the saltbush plains of the west and north-west in the
early summer, and, in common with its two more brilliantly tinted relations^
is known as the " saltbush-bird."

The White-fronted Chat builds a small cup-shaped nest composed of grass;
and rootlets, lined with hair and feathers, and usually placed in a low bush
not far from the ground, often in the settled districts in dead thistles ; in this-
well concealed nest she lays from three to four eggs.

The male, with his white throat and black-banded chest (replaced by greyish-
brown and yellow in the less noticeable females), might at first sight be-
taken for a Sandpiper as it runs along, uttering its plaintive call-note, but it
can be easily distinguished on closer observation by its different build. It is
generally very active towards evening, and if surprised near its nest is very
cunning in pretending to be sick or wounded while leading one away in the-
opposite direction.

The beautiful Orange-fronted Chat {E. aurifrons), with its rich, golden,
orange-yellow head and breast, and the Red Chat (E. tricolor) are both rarer
birds than the White-fronted Chat, but in the early summer I have-
often seen all three species in a day's drive across the saltbush plains hear
Brewarrina.

Slightly under half-size.

Insectivorous Birds of Xkw South Wali^s.
"WHITE=FRONTED CHAT."

Epli fh ian ura alhifrons.

81

INDEX.

A

PAGE.

Aidiitkiza chrtjsorrUo'i 32

Albert Lyre-bird 41

Aiithus australis 29

Apostle-bird 74

Ar.anus persona! > s 3-4

— ■ — sordidus 33

— ■ — - superciliosus 33

Athene boobook 47

Australian Bee-eater 47

Bustard 58

— — Miner 3(3

Pipet 29

— Roller 44

Snipe 13

Azure Kingfisher 75

B

I'ahbler, white-browed 73

Barn Owl, European 45

Bee-eater 47

Bell-bird 79

crested 79

Big Summer-bird 54

Black Cockatoo 43

Black Magpie 72

Black-and-white Fantail 24

Ibis 64

Robin 55

Black-backed Magpie 26

Black-breasted Flycatcher 49

Plover 63

Black-crowned Thrush 49

Black-faced Crow 54

Cuckoo-shrike 54

Black-headed Superb-warbler 56

Black-tailed Native-hen 14

Blight-bird 28

Blue Wren 31

Blue-bird 33

Blue-crane 66

Blue-jay 54

Blue-martin 33

Blue-pigeon 54

Boobook Owl 47

Bottle-nest Swallow 22

Bronze Cuckoo 30

Bronze-wing Pigeon 52

Brown Flycatcher 22

Owl 47

— • — • Tree-creeper 78

Brown's Wren 56

Brush-turkey 40

Buck-buck 47

Buln-buln 41

Biirhinus grallarius 62

Bustard, Australian 58

t 97615 -D

I'AUE"

Cackler 74

Cacom.antis fiabelliformis 30

C'alyptorhynchus funereus 43

C'ampeph a^a Jiumeralis 54

Campephaga, White -shouldered 54

Carphibis (Geronticis) spinicollis 64

Carrion Crow 68

Caterpillar-eater, White-shouldered... 54

Centropus 56

phasiamis 56

Gerchneis cencroides 76

Ghalcococcij X [Lamprococcyx) plagosus 30

Channel-bill 31

Chat, Orange -fronted 80

Red 80

White-fronted 80

Chatterer 74

Chattering Jaj^ 72

C'heramonca le it caster eum 22

Cherry-hawk 54

Cherry-picker 36, 53

Chough 68

White-winged 72

Cinclosoma punctatum 52

Glirnacteris scandens 78

Coach- whip bird 40

Cockatoo, Black 43

Yellow-eared ■ 43

Cockney 30

Cocktail 31

Codlin-moth Eater 74

Collyriocincla harmonica 49

Goracina robudta 54

Gorcorax melanorJiamplrus 72

Corone australis 68

GorvidcB 68

Corvus australis 68

bennetti 68

coronoides tE

melanops 64

Coucal, Pheasant 56

Crane, Blue 66

Crested Bell-bird 79

Shrike-tit 50

Greocincla lunulata 51

Crimson-throated Hone^^-eater 53

Crow 68

Blaek-faced 54

Carrion 68

Hazel-eyed 68

Hooded 68

Small-billed 68

White-eyed 68

Crow-shrike, Piping 26

Cuckoo, Bronze 30

Fantailed 30

Greater 30

Lesser 30

Pallid 30

82

iNOp;x.

I'AGE.

Cuckoo-owl 47

Cuckoo-shrike, Black-faced 54

Guculus pallidus 30

phasianus oG

Curlew, Land 02

Cyaneus 31

Gyanochlamys 31

D

Dacdo, cervina 37

gigas 37

leachi 37

occidentalis 37

Delicate Owl 45

Diamond-bird, iSpotted 52

Dicceum hiriiiirliuaceum 53

Dollar-bird 44

Dove, Ground 52

E

Eagle, Wedge-tailed 77

r^Jagle-hawk 77

Eopsaltria 55

australis 55

Ephthia mi ra albifrons 80

aurifrons 80

— — tricolor 80

Eupodotis australis 58

European Barn Owl 45

Eurystomus australis 44

Eurostopodus guttatus 48

Eurostopus albigularis 48

argus 48

F

Fairy Martin 22

Falcon-shrike 60

Falcunculus frontatus 50

— — • leiicogaster 50

Fantail, Black-and-white 24

Fantailed Cuckoo 30

Flycatcher 24

Fawn-breasted Kingfisher 37

Fern-owl 48

Fig-bird 28

Flame-breasted Robin 35

Flycatcher, Black- breasted 49

Brown 22

Fantailed 24

Restless 23

" Follow me " ^.. 73

Frogmouth 45

Frontal-shrike 50

G

Gabianius pacificus 67

Gallinage australis 13

Geese, Pick-axe 64

Geobasileus chrysorrhous 32

Geocichla luriulata 51

Oeronticus 64

TAUE.

Glossy Ibis 64

Goatsucker 48

Golden-breasted Whistler 4!)

GralUna picata 25

Grape-bird 28

Grancalus melan ops 54

Great Brown Kingfisher 37

Greater Cuckoo 30

Grey Log-jnm})er 74

Shrike-thrush 49

Grey-crowned Babbler 74

Grinder 23

Ground Dove 52

Ground Lark 29

Ground Thrush 51

Ground-bird, Spotted 52

Gull. Pacific 67

Gidl, Silver 67

Gymnhorhina tibicen 29

H

IJalcyon sanctus 75

Happy Family 74

jack ....". 74

Harmonius Tluush 47

Hawk, Eagle 77

SpaiTo w 76

Hazel-eyed Crow 68

Heron, Nankeen 66

Nankeen Night 66

White-fronted 66

Hirimdo neoxena 21

Honey-eater, Crimson-throated 53

Honey-sucker 15

Hooded Crow 68

-Robin ? 55

Hopi^er 74

llylocJieh'don 22

I

Ibis, Black-and-M'hite 64

Glossy 64

New Holland 64

Sacred 64

Straw -necked 64

-White 64

Ibis melucca 64

spinicollis 64

Indian Minah 36

J

Jackass, Laughing 37

Jackdaw 68

Jacky-winter 22

Jay, Blue 54

—^Chattering 72

.Jumper 74

INDEX.

83

K

PAGE.

Keets, Green 16

Kestrel, Nankeen 76

Kingfisher, Azuro 75

Fawn-breasted 37

Great Brown 37

— — Leach's 37

— — Sacred 75

Kookaburra 37

L

LaUujc l.riculur 54

Lalage, White-shoiddered 54

Lamprococci/x plagosus 30

Land Curlew 62

Lark, Ground 29

Larius novce-JioUandice 67

Laughing -jackass .• 37

Leach's Kingfisher 37

Leatherhead 54

Leipoa ocellata 60

Lesser Cuckoo 30

Lobivanellus lolHitus 63

Log-jumper, Grey 74

Lo wan 60

Lyre-bird 41

— Albert 41

Victorian 41

M

26

Black 72

White-backed 26

Magpie-lark 25

MaUee-fowl 60

Mallee-hen 60

Malurus cruentatus 56

cyaneus 31

melanocepJialus 56

Manorhina melanophrys 79

Martin, Blue 33

Fairy 22

Masked Wood-swallow 34

Megapodes ; 60

Melanodryas 55

MelipJiagidce 15

Menura superba 41

Menuridce 41

Meropidce 47

Merops ornatus 47

Micky 36

Microeca fascinans 22

Minah, Indian 36

Miner 36

Mistletoe-bird 53

Mocking-bird 41

Mopoke 45

More-pork 45

Motacilla dubia 49

rAGE.

Motacilla, Southern 55

Moth-owl 48

Mountain Thrush 51

Mountain-pheasant 4]

Myzantha garrula 36

N

Nankeen Heron 66

Kestrel 76

Night Heron 66

Native Wood-pheasant 41

Native-hen, Black-tailed 14

Neositta chrysoptera 78

New Holland Ibis 64

Viilture 40

Night Heron, Nankeen 66

Nightgar, Spotted 48

White-throated 48

Niiiox boobook 47

Norfolk Plover 62

Notophoyx nov(s-hollandice 66

Nut-hatch, Orange-winged 78

Nycticorax caledonicus 66

0

Orange-backed Wren 56

Orange -breasted Thrush 49

Orange-fi'onted Chat 8(X

Orange-winged Nut-hatch 78

Tree-runner 78

Oreoica cristata 79

Otida^ 58

Owl Boobook 47

Brown 47

Cuckoo 47

Delicate 45

European Barn 45

Fern 48

Moth 48

P

Pachycephala gutturalis 49

Pacific Gull 67

Pallid Cuckoo 30

Pardalotvs punctatus 52

Parrot, Rosella 16

Pee- weet 26

" Peter Peter " 23

Petrochelidon ariel 22

{Hylochelidon) Nigricans 22

Petrmca 34

goodenovii 34

leggii 35

(melanodryas) bicolor 55

—_ — multicolor 35

phoenicea 35

Pheasant, Mountain 41

Native Wood 41

— Scrub '. 56

Pheasant- CO ucal 66

84

INDEX.

I'AGK.

Pick-axe Geese 04

Pied Grallina ^5

Robin 5;")

Pigeon, Blue 54

Bronze-wing 52

^— Pine 74

Pine-pigeon 74

Pipet, Australian 29

Piping Crow-shrike 26

Plain-turkey 58

Plegadis falcineUiis 64

Plover, Black-breasted 63

Norfolk 62

Spur-winged 63

——Stone 02

Podargus ciirveri 45

strigoides ■45

Pomatorhinus superciliosa 74

— ■ — - temporalis 73

Port Jackson Thrush 49

Psophodes crepitans 40

Purple- warbler 31

R

Raven 68

Red Chat 80

Red-backed Wren 56

Red-breasted Warbler 35

Red-capjjed Robin 34

Restless Flycatcher 23

Ehipadura tricolor 24

Robin, Black-and-white 55

-Flame-breasted 35

Hooded 55

-Pied 55

Red-capped 34

Scarlet- breasted 35

Shrike 55

— ■ — • Yellow-breasted 55

Rosella Parrot 16

s

Sacred Ibis 64

Kingfisher 75

Saltbush-bird .* 80

vScarlet- backed Warbler 56

Scarlet-breasted Robin 35

Scissors-grinder 23

Scrub-pheasant 56

Scrub-turkey 40

Scijthrops novai-hollandice 31

Settlers' Clock 37

Shepherds' Companion 24

Short-biUed Tree-tit 51

Shrike, Black-faced Cuckoo 54

Falcon 50

Frontal 50

Swallow 33

Shrike-robin 55

Shrike-thrush, Grey 49

Shriku-tit 50

^—Crested " 50

White-bellied 50

• Yellow-bellied 50

Yellow-breasted 50

Silver Gull 67

Silver-eye 2S

Sisura inquicta 23

Sitella 78

Sivie 28

Small-billed Crow 68

Smicorn is breviroslris 51

Snake-bird 3()

Snipe, Australian 13

Soldier-bird 36

Sordid Wood-swallow ' 33

Sordid-thrush 33

Southern Motacilla 55

Sparrow 20

SparroAV-hawk .- 76

Spotted Diamond-bird 52

— — Ground-bird 52

Nightjar 48

Spur-winged Plover 63

Squeaker 36

Starling 20

Stone Plover 62

Straw-necked Ibis 64

iStrix deliratuhi 45

flain/nea 45

Stnithidia cinerea 74

Summer-bird 33

Big 54

Superb- warbler 31

Black-headed 56

Swallow, Bottle-nest 22

Dicseum » 53

Masked Wood 34

Sordid Wood 33

Tree 22

Welcome 21

White-backed 22

White-browed Wood 33

• Swallow-shrike 33

Sweet Prettv Creature 24

T

Tahgallus (Cathvturiis) latlmmi 40

Thickhead, White-throated 49

— — Yellow-breasted 49

Thornbill, Yellow-rumped 32

Thrush, Black-crowned 49

Grey Shrike 49

Ground 51

Harmonius 49

— — Mountain 51

Orange -breasted 49

Port Jackson 49

Sordid 33

Yellow- breasted 55

TNDRX.

85

PAGE.

Tit, Crested Shrike 50

Short-biUed Tree 51

White-bellied Shrike 50

Yellow-bellied Shrike 50

Yellow-breasted Shrike 50

Yellow-rumped 32

Toderhamphus sanctus 75

Tomtit 32

Tree Swallow 22

Tree-creeper, Brown 78

Tree-runner, Orange-winged 78

Tree-tit, Short-biUed 51

Turdus 51

Turkey, Brush 40

Plain 58

— Scrub 40

— Wild 58

Twelve Apostles 74

u

Urocetus audax 77

V

Victorian Lyre-bird ...., 41

w

Wagtail, Willie 24

Warbler, Black-headed Superb 56

— — Scarlet-backed 56

Water-hen 13

Wattle-bird 52

Wattled Talegallns 40

Wedge-tailed Eagle 77

Welcome Swallow ^ 21

Whistler 49

Golden-breasted 49

White Ibis 64

White-backed Swallow 22

T'AGE,

White -bellied Shrike -tit 60

White-browed Babbler 73^

Wood-swallow 33

White-eye 28

White-eyed Crow 68

White-fronted Chat 80

Heron 66

White-shouldered Campephaga 54

Caterpillar-eater 54

Lalage 54

White-throated Nightjar 48

Thickhead 49

White-winged Chough 72

Wild-turkey 58

Willie- wagtail 24

Wood-pheasant, Native 41

Wood-swallow, Masked 34

Sordid 33

White-browed 33

Wren, Blue 31

Brown's 56

Orange-backed 56

— ■ — Red-backed 56

Y

Yahoo 74

Yellow-bellied Shrike-tit 50

Yellow-breasted Robin 55

Shrike-tit 50

Thickhead 49

Thrush 55

Yellow-eared Cockatoo 43

Yellow-rumped Thorn bill 32

Tit 32

Yellow-tail 32

z

Zonifer tricolor 63

Zosterops caerulescens 28

gouldi 28

Sydnov William Applegate Gnllipk, Qovcrnttiert Printer — 10"!

■|-97615— F,