EXCHANGE BIOLOGY RA G DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, NEW 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. PRICE: 10s. 6d. SYDNEY: WILLIAM APPLEGATE GULLICK, GOVERNMENT PRINTER. 1921. \ \ BIOLOGY RA G EXCHANGE CONTENTS. INTRODUCTION PAG1 Bird Protection in Australia .. History of Protection in other Countries 9 Sanctuaries 10 The Migration of Birds 12 Effect of Changing Environments on Habits Introductjon of Foreign Animals and Birds SECTION I BIRDS OF THE GARDEN, ORCHARD AND FIELD 20 ,1 II BIRDS OF THE FORESTS AND BRUSHES ... 39 III BIRDS OF INLAND PLAINS, SWAMPS, OPEN FORESTS, AND SCRUBS. 59- 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 inquiries 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 reproduced 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 affecting 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 first place by Mr. O'Grady. The plates for the present work were printed at the same time as those for the Agricultural Gazette some years ago, and the names (popular and specific) were worked at the same time. T t 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 prepared, a reference 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. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE, NEW 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 devouring 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 beauiy 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 1 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 arid 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, SEFUL 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 could breed without being molested, their cash value as game having been 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 were 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 harmless 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 interestiog 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 birds, 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 ones, 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 protected 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 of 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 Administrator. 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 ev'en 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 considered perfect now, in theory afc any rate ; but it is riot 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 writers 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 passenger 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 officers 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 1st 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, eo 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 transferred to the Department of Agriculture. In 1901 Ignacz Daranye, 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 was followed by a number of zoologists, in 1873, framing rules for the protection of birds of economic value. Further efforts 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 developments 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 was 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 Protection 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 effective 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 sanctuary, besides being a home for all kinds of useful birds, would be a depdt 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. II Nature Reserves. Its aims as stated in its prospectus are : "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 acres in the Bavarian Alps, and another o 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 created 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 Promontorj, which contains 101,730 acres. With the adjoining islands it is controlled by a board 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 carefully protected. 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 sanctuary where fauna and flora are absolutely protected. The National Park, Belair, of 2,000 acres, is only a nature reserve. In New South Whales two great 12 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. national parks in the vicinity of Sydney National Park, Port Hacking, of 33,719 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 Oolong. 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 were 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 (Cinconia 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 them 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 1917. 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 little 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 H 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." In 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 $rom 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 Changing 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 forest 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 wa,s 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- jurious 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 other flesh-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 furrow, one would see a whole string of magpies and Magpie- larks behind him picking up the grubs and worms 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 complained, 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 White-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" are 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 farmer. 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 country. 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 protect 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, and 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. IT districts, each man of a shooting party can shoot three deer, but no more, in the season, while in some States a farmer can shoot animals and birds on hia 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 that 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 nearly 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, regardless 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, have already been touched upon. Poisoned baits are responsible 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 roaming 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 \Taies, 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, that 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 rapid spread of late years right 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, scrub-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 competition with our useful native birds. Before they were so numerous in England, house-martins were found in every village 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 finds suitable surroundings ; 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 difficult 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. Many 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 AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. bird, and tiny bush ally ! I do not for a moment suggest that the man ort 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 Field. Section II. Birds 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 may 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 AUSTRALIAN BIEDS. SECTION I. Birds of the Garden, Orchard and Field* The birds included in this division may also be classed under the heading " semi-domesticated " ; they come from the ranks of the second and some- times even 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 moxena). Yellow-rumped Tit Fairy Martin (Petrochelidon ariel). (Acanthiza chrysorrhoa). Willie- wagtail (Rhipadura tricolor). White-browed Wood-swallow Jacky- winter (Microecafuscinana). (Arlamus superciliosus). Grinder (Sisura inquieta). Masked Wood-swallow Magpie-lark (Grallina picata). (Artamus peisonatus). Magpie (Gymnorhina tibicen) . Red-capped Robin (Petrceca goodenovii) . Silver-eye (Zosterops cosrukscens). Scarlet-breasted Robin (Pelrwca kggii). Ground Lark (Anthus australis). Flame-breasted Robin Bronze Cuckoo (Chakococcyx plagosus) . (Petrceca phcenicea) . Fan tailed Cuckoo Miner or Soldier-bird (Cacomantis flabelliformis). (Myzantha garrula). Blue Wren (Malurus cyaneus). Laughing-jackass (Dacelo gigas). I INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. " WELCOME SWALLOW." Hirundo neoxena, Gould. ^ \ I INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. " FAIRY MARTIN." Petrochelidon ariel, 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 habits, 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 rioted 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- monca leucostereum), which is non-migratory and seldom goes in flocks of more than ten or twenty. It hawks for insects much higher in the air than th& 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 of 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, related to the fowl tick, Argus 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). Gould's Handbook, 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, lie flies. N INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. "JACKY WINTER." MICRCECA FASCINANS, Lath. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. "SCISSORS GRINDER." SISURA INQUIETA, Lath. *t 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 Flycatcher (Sisura inquieta, Latham). Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 216, 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 and 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 hom'estead 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 Ms own 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 l^rsh 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 very 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 jail over with olive and greyish-brown. 24 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. The Willie-wagtail (Rhipadura tricolor Yiellot). 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 black tail is constantly on the wag ; hence his popular name of Willie- wagtail. He is not, however, a true wagtail ; and, though he somewhat resembles the pied-wagtails of Europe 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-known 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 is 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 horses and cattle (which he uses as; stations of observation for moving insects) and picking the parasites and flies; 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- INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. " WILLIE WAGTAIL." RHIPIDURA TRICOLOR, Vieill & INSECTIVOROUS 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 (Grallina picata Latham). Gould's Handbook, vol. I, page 118, No. 12S ; 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 calf 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 office 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 halL 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 north-western Victoria,, a very 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 (Gymnorhina 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 book they are "Piping Crow-shrikes," yet the man in. the bush knows them all as magpies. 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 Queensland. 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 ; INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. "MAGPIE.'' Gymnorhina tibicen, Lath. SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 37 indeed, he will see them in suitable hunting grounds in many districts s.uch 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 birds 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 summrner morning in the Australian forests, or at night a pleasanter ven-song. The semi-domesticated magpie that comes round the homestead garden, often contracts bad habits; it pulls up plants and damages fruit, and some- iimes, 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 well out in the fork of a stout branch of a gum-tree. The clutch of eggs varies from three to five 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, and 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 may be 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 beak. 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 ccerulescen? 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 r 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 of 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," orx INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. " THE WHITE EYE OR SILVER EYE." Zosterops ccerulescens. 3> 1 V < o us E "^ 5 ~ 8 p -. <3 2 S & < ^ CB 5 < 6 P^ O ^ Ctf cc oU & tJ W ^ < SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 29 account of its aphis-eating habits, it is also well known as a pest in summer, when, gatherer! 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 brown bird is frequently seen flying up from the roadside, 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 larvae, 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) plagosus]. Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 623, No. 3S3 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. Ill, 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 (Agarista 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 the vines and trees hunting for insects, seldom when feeding giving its gentle whistle-like call note. Wheelwright, author of the " Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist/' published in 1861, 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 feelings, 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 her. . 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 Acanthizae (tits) tribe, but other species of builders of dome-shaped or secluded nests are chosen,'' and he gives a I's.t 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 the popular, name is well chosen, as the generic name is composed of two Greek words (Lampro and coccyx), the first meaning shining and the second a cuckoo ; it has 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 other useful little birds. The Fantailed Cuckoo (Cacomantis fiabelliformis Latham). Gould's 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." Chalcococcyx (Lainprococcyx) plagosus. Young, male and female. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. " FAN-TAILED CUCKOO." Cacomantis flabelliformis, Latham. - SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 31 the time when Gould published his handbook. This cuckoo is a migratory species in 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- war biers, 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-hollandice), a, large bird ranging all over Australia to Tasmania, and also found in New Guinea. She adopts the crow, and some of the larger shrikes, as foster- mothers for her offspring. / The Blue Wren (Malurus cyaneus 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 of 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 raight 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 recommend 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 denned. 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 chrysorrhoa). 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 going 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 .given 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 n>umber, 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 Ouckoo often imposes her 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 sue. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. " YELLOW=RUMPED TIT." A can tli iza ch rysorrJi oa. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS 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 spring 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, *dth 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 effect of their bad habit. The Red-capped Robin (Petroeca ^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 robin 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 ot fence or tree Slightly less than half-size. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. "THE MASKED WOOD-SWALLOW." Artamus personattts. INSECTIVOROUS Bums or NEW SOUTH WALES. 44 SCARLET=BREASTED ROBIN." PETPiCECA LEGGII, Sharpe. 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 (Petrceca 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. It 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 greenish-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 Petrceca multicolor Vig. and Horsf ., in Gould's Handbook, but is now known under the specific name of P. leggii, Sharpe. Lew in 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 (Petrceca phcenica Gould). Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 232, No. 167 ; 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 garmla 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 restricted 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 his 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 wa& putting up a great fight, while about a dozen more were darting round,, screaming and snapping at the cat's head. Unable to stand the stress of battle the cat released its victim and retreated under the house. On 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 crawling 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. It& 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, 44 FLAME-BREASTED ROBIN." PETRCECA PHCENICEA, Gould. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. "LAUGHING JACKASS." Dacelo gig as, 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 (Dacelo gigas Boddart). Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 122, No, 60 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 105, No. 221. The members of the genus Dacelo comprise soraxe 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 o 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, lizards, 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 no\v 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 more 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 mystery 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 with under Section II : Coach- whip Bird (Psophodes crepitans). Brush-turkey (Talegallus lathami). Lyre-bird (Menura superba). Black Cockatoo (Calyptorhynchus funereus). Dollar-bird (Eurystomus australis). More-pork (Podargus strigoides). Delicate Owl (btrix delicatula). Boobook Owl (Ninox boobook). Australian Bee-eater (Merops ornatus}. White-throated Nightjar (Eurostopus albigularis). Harmonious Thrush (Collyriocincla harmonica). Yellow-breasted Thickhead (Pachycephala gutturalis). Crested Shrike-tit (Falcunculus frontatus). Short-billed Tree-tit (Smicornis brevirostris). Mountain Thrush (Creocincla lunulata). Spotted Ground-bird (Cinclosoma punctatum). Spotted Diamond-bird (Pardalotus punctatus). Mistletoe-bird (Dicceum hirnndinaceum). Black-faced Cuckoo-shrike or Blue Jay (Coracina robusta). White-shouldered Caterpillar-eater (Lalage tricolor'). Hooded Robin (Petrceca 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). Gould's Handbook, vol. 1 p. 312, No 182 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 129, No. 272. This is one of 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 long 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 dangerous. 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-turkey or Wattled Talegallus [Talegallus (Catheturus) lathami GoulcP. 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 nest, which is chiefly composed of earth mould and dead leaves scraped up into a conical mound, about 2J 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, I " About one-sixth natural size. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF XEW SOUTH WALES. "LYRE BIRD." Menura superba. SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIEDS. 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, granulated 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 superba Davies). Gould's Handbook, vol. I, p. 298, No. 179 ; Leach's 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 bird ; 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, \\ 7 hich 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 ^Eolian 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 superba, 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 crea'ture, 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 funereus. SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 43 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 increase 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 (Calyptorhynchus funereus Shaw). Gould's Handbook, vol. II, p. 20, No. 401 ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 89, No. 138. 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 into 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). The branches and trunks of these scrub trees as they mature are often full of these wood-borers, which used to be sought after 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 Yiof- 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 INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALKS. " DOLLAR BIRD." Eurystomus australis, Swainson. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF XEW SOUTH "WALES. "MORE-PORK." Podargus strigoides, Lath. About one-half natural size. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. " DELICATE OWL." Stria 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 evet 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 common 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-pork 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 feathers 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 "was denned 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. Explorers 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 th& 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 boot 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 Owls 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. About one-third natural size. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. " BOOBOOK OWL." Ninox boobook. Slightly less than half-size. INSECTIVOROUS BIRDS OF NEW SOUTH WALES. "THE AUSTRALIAN BEE=EATER." M crops o mat us. '' 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 boobook 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 Boobook. 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,