°go6 ■ J D'O.MBKAix, Visit to an Ibis Rookery, rS? 



invitation to " Come on,") laden with gun, camera, &c., start 

 — rather gingerly, 1 must admit — into the swamp. ]\I-Lennan 

 leads the van, as he has been in just recently. Indeed, it was he 

 who informed my mind with tales of the sight he saw. 



We are soon over our knees, and the going is decidedly difficult, 

 for occasionally one foot will sink deeply in a hole, and with the 

 other leg pawing in the air to keep balanced, it requires all one's 

 muscular eliort to prevent one's taking a seat in the water. Now 

 the rushes grow denser, and soon we hear the voices of many birds 

 ahead of us, calling us and luring us on. We trudge on bravely, 

 each trying with one unoccupied hand to dodge the fierce swamp 

 nettles, scaring now and then a Bald-Coot {Porphyrio melanonotus), 

 whose blue and red would be seen for an instant as he flapped 

 screeching away. Nearer and more distinct grow the sounds, and 

 at the same time our noses give us warning that the " rookery " is 

 close at hand. The sounds become more intelligible, and one can 

 hear that the babel is made up of the queer trumpeting notes 

 from thousands of old birds mingled with the shriller squeaks from 

 as many, or more, young ones. After pausing to listen for a few 

 minutes, we cautiously approach to what we think is a safe limit 

 for seeing and not being seen, in case of scaring the birds — a pre- 

 caution quite unnecessary, as we afterwards find. Parting the 

 rushes on the fringe of the open clearer space, such a sight opens up 

 before us as makes us doubt for the moment its reality. 



Extending over an area of some 6 acres, spread in an irregular 

 fashion, is an immense matwork of trampled down rushes, forming 

 platforms, some at the water's edge, others raised several feet and 

 presenting the appearance of tiers. On these platforms, fighting, 

 squawking, building, sitting, feeding young ones, leaving them and 

 returning in an incessant stream and turmoil are thousands of the 

 two species of Ibises. 



A few are scared away on our approach, but by far the greater 

 number remain, too busy or indifferent to move. Everywhere one 

 looks are the large and well-made fiat rush nests. They are there in 

 thousands, and in them are eggs — eggs in singles, twos, threes, fours ; 

 some newly laid, as the whiteness shows, for the eggs are soon 

 covered all over with the swamp-weed stains ; others are dirty and 

 far incubated. There are eggs just chipping, eggs with little black 

 head and bill sticking out, eggs just opening in two pieces from which 

 is emerging a chick — everywhere eggs, in all stages, hundreds of 

 dozens of them. The shearers evidently appreciated them, for they 

 collected two kerosene " buckets" full for use in the hut. Young 

 ones are much in evidence, and vary in age from those just hatched 

 and drying in the warm sun to those ready to essay their first flight. 

 Most of the younger ones are l)anded together into nurseries, con- 

 sisting of a fairly level meshwork of rushes at the water's edge. 

 On these are 200 to 300 young ones, with several staid-looking 

 keepers or nurses. They are evidently getting their first lessons 

 in learning how to find their food and what to do with it when 

 found, and voracious youngsters they are. These nurseries are 



