48 From Magazines, &c. risr"lul' 



taining two fresh eggs, but did not see any bird about it. This nest 

 was built in a similar position to the previous ones, being partially 

 built in a hole in an almost perpendicular bank on the side of a gully 

 overgrown with small ferns and mosses, rendering the nest nearly 

 invisible, although the gully was close to a track. Returning to my 

 camp, I provided myself with a butterfly net, and, as soon as it was 

 quite dark, without boots, and carefully shading a candle-light, again 

 visited the nest. Quickly placing my net over it, I caught the bird 

 just as it was flying out, and took the nest and eggs. In the early 

 part of October I found two more nests, with two eggs in each, which 

 had been abandoned by the birds, as the yolks were dried up in them 

 and adhering to the shell. The eggs in these nests were not pure 

 white, as those previously found, but had a few small spots on the 

 thicker end, so I did not know whether they belonged to the same 

 bird or not. A few days later I was on the Macalister Range, when, 

 coming down a gully, I saw a little bird with some moss in its bill run 

 on to a piece of dried wood. Looking with my field glasses, I saw it 

 was Sericornis gutturalis. I went lower down the gully and up on the 

 bank, and sat down among some bushes. The bird flew over to the 

 opposite side of the creek, then back again, hopping within 4 feet of 

 me. I kept very quiet. Then it went behind me, and flew over again 

 to the other side of the creek. There was a very steep place where it 

 disappeared. I watched it return four times into the gully, and gather 

 moss off the rocks and go back to the same place, where later on 

 I discovered the nest. Marking the spot, I returned a week later, on 

 the 2ist October, 1904, and found the bird sitting on two fresh eggs, 

 which, together with the nest, I took. The eggs in this nest were also 

 speckled on the thicker end." 



Correspondence. 



NATIVE NAMES OF BIRDS. 



To the Editors of "' The Emit.'' 

 Sirs, — We are neglecting a duty we owe to posterity by not collect- 

 ing the aboriginal names of our birds. The aborigines are fast 

 disappearing, and with them goes the original nomenclature of our 

 avi-fauna. Were native names and other native knowledge of our 

 birds collected and published we would no doubt find, on 

 systematically tabulating them, that there was a connection between 

 some species which so far has been hidden from systematists, and 

 especially from field workers, but which was understood by the 

 aboriginal children of nature, whose life was so closely bound up 

 with the habits of our birds. Some of our field-workers have 

 recorded that they had discredited information given them in the 

 field by our aborigines, but on investigation had found the blacks' 

 information correct. With pleasure I note that some of our field- 

 workers, members of the A.O.U., have given native names when 

 writing. Probably all the members of the A.O.U. would assist as 

 far as they can in this patriotic and j^robably useful duty ere it be 

 too late. — Yours, &c., 



Melbourne, 8/6/05. A. H. E. MATTINGLEY. 



[In connection with this subject reference should be made to 



