°9o6 '1 S/ray Feathers. 205 



be just as alarmed as the yountr ones. Should a Musk-Duck 

 with her pair of young approach another with young, one has to 

 go, and the young are left to shift for themselves. While the chase 

 goes on — sometimes for a quarter of an hour — one will chase the 

 other at a good pace, flapping along the surface of the water. I 

 have never seen one rise from the water. 



As showing how necessary it was to extend the close season, 

 I counted eight clutches in the down of Black Duck and Teal 

 to-day on the lake. — J. C. FitzGerald. Neuarpurr (Vict.), 

 29/12/05/. 



" Where Swallows Build." — I noticed some time ago in 

 TJie Emu a query as to where Swallows built before the advent 

 of Europeans. A pair of Swallows built in a cave in the hills 

 behind Mitcham, SA. I first remember the nest in 1874 or 

 1875, and every year since then that I have visited the cave 

 there has been an occupied or recently occupied nest. The last 

 time I visited it was about 5 years ago, when there were young 

 birds in the nest. On Brown Hill Creek, also near Mitcham, 

 there are some cliffs about 20 or 30 feet in height where a few 

 pairs of Swallows built every year. When in the Mt. Gunson 

 district in 1900 I found a Swallow's nest containing two fresh 

 eggs built in the inside of a hollow gum stump ; this was about 

 15 miles from the nearest habitation, and the country is very 

 sparingly inhabited. In 1902, in the Gawler Ranges, about 45 

 miles west of Port Augusta, where there is a deep gorge, at the 

 back of Corunna H.S., there were about half a dozen Swallows' 

 nests on the precipitous sides of this gorge, some of them of 

 much greater size than usual, and all of them quite white from 

 the droppings of successive generations. All of these situations 

 seem to be natural breeding spots, and have probably been 

 occupied for years before the Europeans built sheds and stables 

 for the Swallow's accommodation.— (Dr.) A. M. MORGAN. 

 Adelaide, 23 '7/05. 



^ '^ ^ 



Notes on Gymnorhina leuconota. — Some eight years 

 ago a neighbour of mine in the Heytesbury Forest had a tame 

 one-legged Magpie (the other leg having been cut off by a 

 rabbit trap) which he taught to whistle " Merrily danced the 

 Quaker's wife, merrily danced the Quaker," which she did to 

 perfection. But, yielding to the persuasion of some gallant of 

 her own species, she deserted her home and took to the bush, 

 where she built a nest and reared a family. She most 

 assiduously taught the young birds her own accomplishment, 

 and they all whistled " Merrily danced the Quaker's wife " more 

 or less perfectly. She then disappeared, but succeeding genera- 

 tions of Magpies have retained scraps of the old tune, and there 



