•292 



11 I.MAN roPODIN/E. 



eared, White-eyed and Shoveller Ducks, Coot, Hoary-headed Grebe, the banks being inhabited 

 by Gull-billed Tern and White-headed Stilts, with a few Black-fronted, Ked-capped and Ked- 

 kneed Dotterel. C)n the dam bank were numerous nests of the White-headed Stilt, mostly 

 small depressions in the moist soil, surrounded with weed and other debris, some being built up 

 to a height of four inches, with a central egg cavity. Most of these nests contained clutches of 

 four eggs and one contained five. The birds became very excited when their nesting places 

 were being examined, flying around uttering their barking cry, and sometimes they came quite 

 near, jumping up and down, with extended wings, in the shallow water. On this bank, where 

 the Gull-billed Tern were nesting, was one nest of the Spur-winged Plover, one nest of the 

 Ked-kneed Dotterel, and several nests containing eggs of the Black Swan." 



Nestlings of the White-headed Stilt are covered with down, olive-brown in the centre of 

 back and head, light brown towards the sides, with three or four rows of spots and blotches 

 arranged longitudinally, the lateral rows being brown, the central ones deep black ; the 

 under surface of the body white; legs pale olive; bill blackish-brown; gape dusky pink ; iris 

 brown." 



The accompanying figure of a nest, with the unusual number of live eggs, is reproduced from 



a photograph taken by Dr. W. 

 Macgillivray. 



Mr. Chas. French, Junr., 

 Government Entomologist of 

 \'ictoria, forwarded me a nest, 

 one of a number found in a 

 large swamp at Altona Bay, 

 near Laverton, Victoria, where 

 these birds were breeding in 

 October, November and Decem- 

 ber, igii. The nest, a rounded 

 Hat mass, is composed through- 

 out of water-weed (NitcUa) and 

 Salt-bush plant('.S'(i//('()r///i;J, dried 

 twigs of the latter plant forming 

 the top of the structure. It 

 averages seven inches and a half 

 in diameter by one inch and a half in depth. Mr. French informs me the nests, which contained 

 from three to five eggs for a sitting, were mostly placed on the tops of small Salicoruia plants, 

 about three or four inches above the surface of the water. 



Dr. A. M. Morgan wrote as follows from Adelaide, South Australia; — " I ha\e met with 

 llimaniopns Iciuocephalus in all suitable country about Adelaide and as far north as Laura. The 

 birds breed freely on the Murray lakes and on the swamps of the Adelaide Plains. On the 17th 

 August, 1896, I found a colony breeding on a swamp at the Finniss River. There were about 

 forty nests, but only two were occupied, one containing three fresh eggs and the other one fresh 

 egg. The nests were roughly built of a few pieces of samphire and broken reeds, and were 

 mostly placed on a mud bank rising out in the water, but a few were placed in samphire 

 bushes. I visited the place a week later, but found nothing but broken egg shells and the birds 

 flown; I think a Harrier or a Crow had been there. On the 26th November, 1910, I visited 

 the swamps behind the golf links at Glenelg, and found thousands of White-headed Stilts with 

 their young nearly full grown. Although the young birds were quite able to look after them- 

 selves, the old birds made such a deafening clatter that I was glad to get away. A few pairs 

 breed in these swamps every year, but this is the first time I have seen them in such numbers." 



NEST AND KGliS OF WIIITR-H KADKJ) STILT. 



