^"igoe''] Campbell, Some Victorian Winter Notes. 63 



The earliest nesting operations I observed this season were at 

 Horsham — a Yellovv-rumped Tit had eggs and many pairs of 

 Chestnut-eared Finches had young a week old in an orangery 

 on 3rd August. Further along the line, at Dimboola, some 

 striking country is found. South of the town is what is known 

 as " The Desert," which stretches its undulating sandy hills well 

 down into South Australia. Here the stringybark gum flourishes 

 among breaks of honeysuckle {Baiiksia ornata), spinifex, and 

 dwarf tea-tree. Birds were abundant on the bright morning 

 when I passed through — Streperas, probably S. graculina, in the 

 timber, and thousands of Lorikeets and Honey-eaters in the 

 more open parts. The Lorikeets, both Porphyry-crowned and 

 Musky, were climbing about the tufty, broad-leaved banksia 

 bushes, pushing their chubby faces right into the flowering 

 spikes in search of honey, filling the whole air with their noisy 

 chatterings. And White-bearded Honey-eaters — well, every bush 

 seemed to flicker with their yellow-splashed wings. There were 

 thousands of them, intent on rifling the banksia blooms, which 

 they do far more gracefully than the phlegmatic Lorikeets. 

 Reference has often been made to irruptions of White-bearded 

 Honey-eaters in several parts of Victoria, and the question 

 asked, where do they come from ? Here appears an explanation. 

 The species collects on such abundant winter-feeding grounds 

 as these banksia " deserts," and moves abroad with the advance 

 of summer. I should not think they nested there in any 

 numbers. Very many Tawny-crowned Honey-eaters were also 

 about. Among the banksias, too, were the merry voices of 

 Wrens, and after the exercise of some patience two species were 

 identified — Malurus cyaneus and M. assiniilis, females and males 

 of both. One male of the latter species was just changing his 

 mantle, and the rich brown of the shoulders with the blue of the 

 ear coverts was the only bright colour showing. 



Through the midst of this sandy "desert" flows the Wimmera, 

 with its attendant flats of red gum trees. A change in the bird- 

 life is at once apparent. White-plumed Honey-eaters and 

 White-throated Tree-creepers, with Parrots and Cockatoos, are 

 common, and the birds of " the desert" are no longer seen. At 

 one point a strange, sweet note was heard from the top of a tall 

 red gum. I think it must have been that of a White-throated 

 Gerygone. 



About midday, leaving this oasis, I pushed out to the north 

 of Dimboola into real mallee country — the south-eastern fringe 

 of that great unique tract lying in the north-west corner of 

 Victoria. Here the soil was different from the area visited in 

 the morning, the plants were all different, and the birds were all 

 different. Many dwarf, rotund bushes of acacia were in flower, 

 and in them sported the beautiful Yellow-tufted Honey-eater, 

 and near by were the Brown-headed Honey-eater and the 



