Vol. 



190S 



; ■] NiCHOLLS, A Trip to the West. 



79 



the South and Western AustraHan marsupials, crossing from 

 Tasmania, ages and ages ago, by a land bridge now represented by 

 Bass Strait, travelled westward, in the same direction as did the 

 rabbits, and so entered and stocked the country. But during that 

 remote period, an abundant rainfall and a luxuriant vegetation, 

 together with the absence of enemies, made easy the passage way. 



It was immediately after leaving the steamer, and whilst walking 

 along the roadway leading from the jetty to the town of Albany, 

 that the first land birds were met with. These, the Long-billed 

 Honey-eaters {Meliornis longirostris), a sub-species or variety of the 

 New Holland or White-bearded Honey-eater, were readily dis- 

 tinguished by the lanceolate streaks of black and white along the 

 breast and abdomen, the yellow in the wings, and the white cheek- 

 patches. The birds were dipping their bills into the long flower- 

 tubes of a peculiar shrub, known as the " kangaroo paw," which 

 gi-ows about 4 feet in height and has the terminal flowers arranged 

 on the end of the stalk like the outspread claws on the fore-paw 

 of a kangaroo. 



A White-fronted Bush-Chat {EpJitJiianura albijrons) was next 

 flushed as it ran along the roadside. Two out of the four species 

 which constitute this typical Australian family are recorded for 

 the district, the other being the Tricoloured {E. tricolor). During a 

 holiday extending from February to June, and spent partly in 

 the town and partly in the forest, many different kinds of birds 

 were noted. In the private and public gardens, where the crimson- 

 flowering gums {Eucalyptits ficifolia) — perhaps the most beautiful 

 and ornamental of Australian trees — bloom in varying shades of 

 red, the small, inquisitive Green-backed White-eye {Zosterops goitldi), 

 the White-browed Spinebill {Acanthorhynchus snperciliosus), and 

 the Western White-naped Honey-eater {Melithreptus chloropsis), 

 together with the Little Wattle-Bird {Acanthochcera hmtdata), chased 

 and scolded one another as they gleaned a late harvest from the 

 last of the flowers and insects. Later on, in the month of May, 

 when a fine clump of transplanted Tasmanian blue gums burst into 

 early blossom, a flock of the Purple-crowned Lorikeets {Glossop- 

 sittacus porphyrocephalns), with that unerring instinct which we 

 cannot explain, found them out the following day, and continued 

 their visits every morning for some weeks. These Lorikeets, rather 

 scarce in Victoria, fly in flocks of twenty or so, though sometimes 

 they collect in hundreds. I often met with them whilst walking 

 through the bush, and noticed a peculiarity. If you fire a gun or 

 shout out loudly the whole flock dart towards the ground like a 

 flash, and fly with amazing speed only a few feet above the grass. 

 The aborigines, taking advantage of that peculiarity, used to build 

 a sort of brush fence, whitewashing it with the pipeclay mixture 

 they used in their corroborees. When the birds passed overhead, 

 the blacks raised a great clamour, and the panic-stricken Parrots, 

 dropping to earth, flew into the brush and were caught in hundreds. 

 Round about Albany thel^oys often frighten them into wire-netting 

 in the same way. 



