PEL10HVAS. 



287 



Plain, near Deniliquin, in Ki\ eiina, and for many years the late .Mr. K. 11. Uennett procured 

 adults, eggs and young in the Ivanhoe and Mossgiel Districts and on Yandembah Station, in 

 South-western New South Wales, and where also, further west, Dr. W. Macgillivray records it 

 from the Broken Hill District. 



Mr. K. H. Bennett, writing from Mossgiel, South-western New South Wales, in 1886, 

 remarks ; — " Eudyomias australis arrives here about the beginning of September, and departs 

 again after the breeding season is over, about the end of February. It is usually met with in 

 pairs, or in families of four or five, and frequents the driest and barest situations on the 

 plains, similar to those chosen by Glnirola gi'dllaria. It breeds during the months of October 

 and November, the site chosen for the reception of the eggs, which are usually three in number, 

 is where the soil is loose or broken, and they are generally surrounded by a slight ring of small 

 broken stems of herbaceous plants, broken up sheep dung, etc. The young birds leave the nest 

 shortly after being hatched, and run with great celerity when compelled to do so. As a rule, 

 however, they trust to protection from danger to the wonderful manner in which the short down 

 in which they are clothed assimilates to the bare loose earth. When the little creature squats down, 



with neck stretched out and laid Hat 

 on the ground, it is most difficult of 

 detection. When in this position, 

 so much does it resemble a small 

 lump of earth, that even the keen 

 eye of an aboriginal will fail to 

 detect it so long as it remains 

 motionless. Sometimes this bird 

 exhibits the utmost tameness, and 

 will allow a horse to almost tread 

 upon it before it will move, and then 

 will only take a step or two out of 

 the way ; at other times it is exces- 

 sively shy. It runs with great 

 speed, and its flight is also very 

 swift." 



While resident at Yandembah 

 Station, near Mossgiel, Mr. Bennett 

 made the following notes on the nidification of this species : — " Found to-day, 26th April, iSSg, 

 a nest of Endromias australis containing three eggs ; this is unusually early, for hitherto I have 

 never known this bird to breed before September or October. The eggs were placed on a small 

 natural mound of earth some four or five inches in diameter, and almost the same height above 

 the surrounding ground, and were completely covered with small dried sticks, about two or three 

 inches in length. 1 disturbed the bird from the nest on which she was sitting, and noticing only 

 the sticks, at first thought that in consequence of the ground all round being covered in water 

 to the depth of two or three inches — the result of recent heavy rains — the bird in this particular 

 instance had departed from the usual custom, and had constructed a kind of nest, and had not 

 yet deposited her eggs, but on a closer examination found two eggs on the bare ground, and 

 the sticks placed carefully over as a safeguard from the keen-eyed Crow, as whenever the old 

 bird left the nest without this covering, situated as they were, the eggs would have been very 

 conspicuous, as the little mound on which they were was the only dry spot for fifty or sixty 

 yards around." 



Mr. Bennett further remarks finding another nest on the 29th April, with two eggs in it, 

 and covered in a similar manner with small sticks, and also saw an old one with recently hatched 



AUSTRALI.\N DOTTEREL. 



