GVMNOBHINA. O 



Dr. W. MacGillivray writes me " Gymnovhina tihiccn is very common in the Cloncurry 

 District, Northern Queensland, especially along the creeks which intersect the open downs 

 country. They nest mostly during the winter, and occasionally also during the wet season in 

 the early part of the year. The eggs are very much smaller than those of \"ictorian birds." Later 

 on he writes from from Broken Hill, Western New South Wales: — "Gymnorhina tibicen is the 

 only species up here of this genus, and is numerous. They nest later than G. Icuconota does in 

 the Western District of Victoria, commencing late in August, whereas in Victoria it commences 

 early in July. On a day's outing, 23rd September, 1901, I examined many Magpie's nests and 

 found in most of them eggs at an advanced stage of incubation — on the point of hatching— or 

 newly hatched young ; many contained fresh eggs and some were only building; the season 

 was a good one and food abundant. They nest usually out along the smaller creeks and 

 gullies in the low ranges about here." 



Relative to a trip made in August igoo, to Mount Gunson, about one hundred miles to the 

 north-west of Port Augusta, South Australia, Dr. A.M. Morgan writes me: — "Gyiniwrhina tihicen 

 is the rarer of the two species about Port Augusta, but at Mount Gunson it is much the commoner, 

 G. Icuconota being very seldom seen, but neither species is common. Three nests were taken, 

 one at Elizabeth Creek with two young birds and an addled egg ; another in the same locality, 

 with two eggs ; and the third at Yultacowie Creek, with two fresh eggs of a very elongate form. 

 One pair of birds at Elizabeth Creek were very pugnacious and attacked fiercely and repeatedly 

 a Whistling Eagle which had its nest in a neighbouring tree." 



The nest is a deep bowl-shaped structure, irregularly formed externally, of thin sticks and 

 twigs, the inside being rounded and neatly lined with fibrous roots, coarse grasses, bark fibre, 

 cowhair, wool, or any soft and warm material. An average one measures externally fourteen 

 inches in diameter by six inches and a half in depth, and internally seven inches in diameter by 

 three inches and a half in depth. Not infrequently curved or bent pieces of telegraph or fencing 

 wire enter largely into the construction of their nests ; there is one in the Australian Museum 

 collection, taken by ^Ir. W. H. Loder, at Hermitage Plains, Cobar District, New South Wales, 

 in July 1900. It was built in a White Box tree about thirty feet from the ground, and externally 

 consists chiefly of lacing wire, used in wire-netting fencing, the cup-like cavity which is small, 

 being lined with bark fibre, horse and cow-hair. The nest is usually built in the upright forked 

 branches of a Eucalyptus, at a height varying from twenty to sixty feet from the ground, at other 

 times, in country districts where the birds are unmolested, in the top of a sapling or bushy 

 crown of a pine or tea-tree at an altitude of about ten to twenty feet, and occasionally it is 

 placed low down among the rigid branches of some bush out on a plain. 



The situation of the nest is frequently betrayed by the aggressive manner of the male on 

 one approaching near the tree in which it is placed, and the persistency with which it will swoop 

 down and viciously snap at the intruders head. Not only does it exhibit its savageness to 

 mankind, but to any bird or animal venturing on its domain. On more than one occasion I 

 have observed a dog beat a hasty and ignominous retreat from the fierce attacks of these birds. 

 Instances are many of birds in a state of semi-domestication pairing with wild birds and returning 

 again to their owners after rearing a brood. Isolated pairs, too, remain to breed in the same 

 place year after year. In a small paddock fronting one of the outlying streets of Chatswood, 

 and another of a few acres in extent at Roseville a pair of these birds have reared a brood every 

 season for the past seven years, but have never ventured to build in similar trees surrounding 

 their domains. The nests have always been placed well out of the. way of bird-nesting boys, 

 the last nest built by the pair of birds at Chatswood, being in a thick bare dead fork of a 

 Eucalyptus close to the street, but fully seventy feet from the ground. Travel by rail anywhere 

 in open forest lands in New South Wales, the stick-formed nest, either new or in various stages 

 of dilapidation, of the Black or the White-backed Alagpie is usually a prominent feature in the 

 landscape. 



