igoy' J Howe, Observations on the Pilot-Bird. 185 



At the laying period the bird is exceedingly timid, and if the 

 nest contains eggs and the bird be watched it will not go near 

 the locality unless the eggs are nearly incubated, and then she 

 is loth to leave them ; but I have not yet seen a bird enter or 

 leave a nest. If the nest be touched before an Qgg is laid, or the 

 birds watched too closely when building, they often desert it and 

 commence operations elsewhere. This they did on three different 

 occasions this year. Incubation takes about 15 or 16 days, and 

 the young leave the nest when three weeks old, at which stage 

 they are almost as agile as the parents. The plumage, too, is 

 identical, but the gape is more yellow in the fledgling. 



The breeding season apparently extends over five months — 

 from October to February inclusive — and two broods are reared. 

 The first nest noticed this season was on 17th November, 1906, 

 and on loth February, 1907, two nests, both containing eggs, 

 were noticed. The eggs of one had been broken only a itw 

 hours before, and undoubtedly the blame was again attributable 

 to a bush-rat. The Pycnoptilus has no doubt many enemies, 

 among them being the pest just mentioned and that imported 

 curse, the fox. The remains of a Pilot-Bird were found by one 

 of the party littered about the nest, and close handy I found the 

 beautiful bronze feathers of a Pigeon scattered about the scrub. 

 The Pycnoptilus is also a foster-parent to the egg of Cacoviantis 

 flabelliformis (Fantailed-Cuckoo).* On the other hand, the nest 

 is so well hidden, the bird is such a recluse, and the country 

 that it inhabits so dense, that it generally has ample warning of 

 its enemies' approach. All things considered, I do not think 

 there is any immediate fear of its numbers being greatly 

 diminished. But settlement is going on, and the gullies are 

 being cleared so rapidly that shortly only in the mountain 

 fastnesses will its glorious song be heard in thanksgiving to its 

 Maker above — the Almighty. 



A Rookery of Storm-Petrels. 



By a. G, Campbell and A. H. E. Mattingley. 



Opposite the entrance of Port Phillip Bay, and some 4 miles 

 in from the actual Heads, lies a long, narrow strip of land known 

 as Mud Island. The name is somewhat of a misnomer, for the 

 island consists mainly of sand. The island, which is perhaps 

 3 miles around, stands sentinel over the entrance to the 

 harbour of Melbourne, arresting the onrush of sand that would 

 block the opening, piling it up in the .shallows and in the banks 

 that form its flanks. Mud Island is unique in being one of the 

 few spots on the south coast of Australia where a species of 



* Emu, vol. vi., p. 131. 



