166 NOTES ON THE HABITS OP BIRDS BREEDING IN N.S.W., 



some time, they would descend in the same manner and resume 

 their perch, sitting there until dusk, when they would fly out 

 on the plain, over which they might be observed hovering 

 like sea-gulls, and every now and then pouncing down upon a 

 rodent, which they devour whilst on the wing, By sunrise the 

 next morning they all would be on their accustomed perches. 

 The number of rats destroyed by these birds must have been very 

 great, for the ground beneath the trees they frequented was 

 thickly covered with the balls of fur which, like the owl, they 

 have the power of ejecting from their stomachs. The native dogs 

 at that time were very numerous, and used to feed upon the rats 

 (I haven taken eleven from the stomach of one dog). Yet, not- 

 withstanding dogs, hawks, owls, cats, and poison, there was no 

 perceptible diminution in their numbers for some months, when 

 all at once it was noticed that both they and the hawks had 

 greatly decreased, and within a week of that time not a rat or 

 hawk was to be seen, and the rats have not appeared since. 

 Where did they go 1 



" In 1870 (the year of the great floods here) we had a similar 

 visitation, but this time it was mice instead of rats. They made 

 their appearance early in January of that year, but not in great 

 numbers at first ; these, I suppose, were the avant couriers of the 

 countless swarms which were soon to follow, for by the middle of 

 February the whole country was literally alive with them, and the 

 devastation they made in flour, sugar, and other things was 

 terrible. This invasion lasted for seven or eight months, when 

 they gradually and almost entirely disappeared ; but ' there are 

 still some few remaining who remind of the past.' A few of the 

 hawks to which I have alluded came with the mice, but did not 

 stay, departing long before the latter. Some idea of the numbers 

 of the mice may be formed when I state that one day being over 

 at the adjoining station my friend informed me that he had taken 

 4000 dead ones out of the store that morning, the result of one 

 night's poisoning ; he assured me that he had counted them as the 

 men picked them up." 



