1 1 J. Berney, Birds of the Richmond District, N.Q. [.^i^'jan. 



Greenshank {Gloifis ncbularins). — A few Greenshanks may be seen 

 every year, nearly always singly, but occasionally three or four together. 

 November, middle to end, appears to be their favourite time of arrival, 

 but I have one early instance— 19th September, 1905. 29th March, 1902, 

 is the latest date upon which I have seen them here. 



Little Stint {Limonilcs ruficollis). — It is only a chance visitor to this 

 part of the Flinders. I obtained a specimen on 5th March, 1900, which 

 Mr. De Vis was good enough to identify for me, and on 6th November, 

 1903, I watched with field-glasses a party of seven feeding on a shallow 

 swamp. These are the only times seen. 



Sharp-tailed Stint {Hetcropygia acuininaia). — Usually it is October 

 before the Stints reach Wyangarie, and some seasons I do not catch sight 

 or them till November; however, this year (1906), a pair of them have 

 broken all their previous records by arriving here on 23rd September. They 

 leave again in March as a rule, but I noted them here in 1900 on 6th April. 

 Though generally feeding in threes and fours, I once saw a mob of thirty 

 and on another occasion fifty together. 



Painted Snipe {Ros/fatiela australis). — On 26th July, 1906, I flushed a 

 single bird in the vicinity of a bulrush swamp, and, following it, flushed it 

 a second time to make sure of its identification ; never saw it out here 

 before. 



Marsh Tkrn {ilydr-ochelidon Jiybrida). — They show up whenever we get 

 a good wet season, and as the heaviest rains fall during the summer months 

 then it follows that the Marsh Tern is mostly a summer visitor ; but we see it 

 during the winter, too, at times, if we get rain. Usually in small parties of 

 eight or ten, sometimes five-and-twenty together. 



Gull-billed Tern {Gelochelidon anglica). — Like the last species, this 

 Tern comes to us in the season of the big rain. Though less frequently seen 

 (we get a visitation about every other year) than H. hybrida^ it is always in 

 bigger numbers, the mobs varying from twenty to a hundred and twenty. 

 One that I shot for the purpose of identification had been feeding freely on 

 grasshoppers. Fortunately we have a large number of grasshopper-feeders — 

 Ibis, Bustards, Plovers, Ouails, Herons, and most of the Falcones, to men- 

 tion a few. Very few people stop to consider what would happen if the 

 insect-eating birds were exterminated. It would mean that we, human 

 beings, would survive them but a short time ; we could not live long on fish 

 alone. 



Silver Gull {Lams iiovcc-Jiollandioi). — In the middle of a dry time 

 (August, 1903), a Silver Gull appeared on a waterhole here. 



White Ibis Ubis moiucca) ; Straw-necked Ibis {Carphibis spinicollis). 

 — It will save repetition if 1 bracket these two Ibis, and write them up 

 together. They are liable to be met with during any of the first eight 

 months of the year, but after that they leave us entirely, making away, no 

 doubt, to nesting-grounds more favourably situated. They did nest in the 

 neighbourhood on one occasion, early in 1904— March, I think, I was told — 

 the interesting event taking place at Hamilton Downs, a sheep station 

 situated 64 miles S.W. of Richmond. The rookery, I understand, was 

 formed on the border of a sheet of water, the nests being built on the 

 crown of a mass of drift that had been collected by the summer floods 

 and left stranded in shallow water. The White Ibis is only seen in small 

 lots, but the Straw-necked species is generally pretty numerously repre- 

 sented. In February, 1905, we had an immense invasion of them, which 

 was very fortunate, as it was a bad grasshopper year, and these birds must 

 have destroyed millions of the insects. On one occasion I picked up a 

 C. spinicidlls that had been killed, I think, by a bird of prey ; its stomach 



