yS Berne Y, Birds of the Richmond District, N .Q. [^nd'o^ct. 



in each of the latter, but the former was empty, although I put the 

 bird off its nest. 



Black-faced Wood-Swallow {Artamus melanops). — A constant 

 resident, nesting here regularly. They pair in August, and 1 have seen 

 young leave the nest early in September, and from then on I have 

 found eggs up to 5th February. The clutch is generally three, but 

 on two occasions I have seen four. On one occasion I saw a pair eating 

 honey, and mentioned the instance in connection with the two preceding 

 species, but reported it as A. cinereus, which was incorrect, as it should 

 have been melanops. We have not A . cinereus in these parts. I have 

 seen as many as sixteen melanops together, but they do not flock. 



Little Wood-Swallow (Arlamus minor). — A few of these interesting 

 little birds are to be seen all through the year. Although I have never 

 seen them nesting about Richmond, I have found a nest with two 

 squabs in December at Homestead, on the Campaspe River. 



A Trip to the West. 



By E. B. Nicholls, North Melbourne. 

 {Read before the Bird Observers' Club., 2yd August., 1905-) 

 After a five-days' storm-tossed trip across the Great Australian 

 Bight the first glimpse of Western Australia was one of disappoint- 

 ment. From the deck of the steamer the barren, rocky headland 

 of Cape Vancouver looked bleak and dismal in the dim grey light 

 of early morning. But, treeless and uninviting as it appeared, it 

 was land, and as an insatiable longing for something solid tmderfoot 

 had long since overcome all other desires, I restrained my feelings, 

 and agreed with a fellow-passenger, who had not missed a meal 

 and was ostentatiously jMoud of the fact, that the view was magni- 

 ficent. 



Presently, as the rays of the sun scattered over the waves, the 

 islands of Breaksea and Michaelmas loomed in the distance, the 

 limestone structure of the lighthouse on the former glinting con- 

 spicuously in the seascape. Breaksea, some nine miles from Albany, 

 is placed midway between the two points of land which guard the 

 entrance to King George's Sound. Cape Vancouver forms the 

 eastern extremity. The western, a precipitous sandstone cliff some 

 three hundred feet high, is known as Bald Head. Visiting the 

 island at a later date it was found that the Mutton-Birds or Fleshy- 

 footed Petrels [Puffiniis carneipes) had nested in the deserted 

 burrows of the rabbits which overrun the place. Many years ago 

 they were isolated there by the Albany town authorities, who very 

 wisely would not permit of their being liberated on the mainland. 

 But this four-footed scourge has worked its way, with the help of 

 an occasional wet season, across the Continent, and is now to be 

 found at Esperance, a port 250 miles to the east of Albany. The 

 migration has been carried out in spite of the intervening desert 

 and a wire-netted fence, which, starting from the south coast, near 

 Esperance, runs for one thousand miles inland — in other words, 

 half-way across Australia. The primitive fauna, the forerunners of 



