310 



THE NOISY PITTA. 



miles south of Sydney. There are numerous examples in the collection obtained on the Bellinger, 

 Richmond and Tweed Rivers, the wing-measurement averaging 5 inches in length, and precisely 

 similar in length to a male and female procured by Mr. George Masters at Wide Bay, 

 Queensland, in October 1867. A gradual decrease in size is perceptible in specimens from the 

 farther north in which they are obtained, examples procured by Messrs. Cairn and Grant 



near Cairns, and by Mr. 

 K. Broadbent at Cardwell, 

 having an average wing 

 measurement of 4*65 inches, 

 and almost intermediate in 

 size between Pitta sirepitans 

 and the smaller race, P. 

 siuiillima, Gould, from Cape 

 York. The feathers of the 

 back, and the scapulars of 

 many adult specimens from 

 all parts of Eastern Aus- 

 tralia, have a conspicuous 

 black sagittate marking 

 pointing upwards on the 

 apical portion of the feather. 



While in Brisbane Mr. 

 K. Broadbent informed me that he used to obtain, in former years, specimens of the Noisy Pitta 

 in a scrub within a few miles of the city. Later on I visited a brush at the foot of the Condong 

 Range, on the south side of the Tweed River, in Northern New South Wales, where these 

 birds were fairly numerous, and whose notes could be heard in the early morning and just 

 about dusk. 



These birds live well in confinement. One Dr. James C. Cox (Crown Trustee) had in an 

 aviary at North Sydney, was particularly lively towards evening, flying about the bare branches 

 of a tree, or hopping along the floor, and emitting a liquid and somewhat mournful note, which 

 Dr. Cox informed me was uttered at intervals throughout the night. Later on he presented this 

 bird to the Director of the Botanical Gardens, Sydney, where I frequently had it under 

 observation, extending over a period of several years, the food given it consisting of small pieces 

 of raw meat, snails, worms and insects. It was very tame, and with an uplifted wing would lay 

 basking in the sun close to the wire of the aviary, while visitors passed within a few feet of it. 

 These birds have a curious habit, while walking about, of constantly lifting the short tail up and 

 down, giving it the appearance of being fastened on loosely with a hinge. 



Respecting the birds obtained by Mr. R. Grant in the Bellinger River District, on behalf 

 of the Trustees of the Australian Museum, he has supplied me with the following notes : — " I 

 found Piiia stvcpitans fairly distributed all over the upper sources of the Bellinger River, nearly 

 every little patch of scrub, even when surrounded by clearings, containing a pair or more of 

 these birds, and I have shot them within two hundred yards of the township of Boat Harbour. 

 It is usually a shy and retiring species, and I have known men of middle age, natives of the river, 

 and cedar getters, who had never seen a live Pitta, and were astonished when, by imitating their 

 note, I called one up, shot it and showed it to them. I could always secure these birds, and 

 found that they would come more readily if one could manage to get between two birds calling 

 to one another, and I was almost certain to get both. They live chiefly on land molluscs, and 

 in different parts of the bush I found a good many of their " breaking-grounds," usually a stone, 

 in other places a small stump, which was surrounded with broken Helices and other shells." 



