38 SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 



Civilisation appears to agree with the Laughing-jackass, as it does with 

 the magpies, and in the suburbs of Sydney it is commonly seen in a semi- 

 domesticated state, frequently visiting our gardens, or resting on our 

 chimney tops. The value of the Laughing-jackass as a deadly enemy of all 

 snakes is somewhat mythical. He certainly snaps up a small snake now and 

 then as a side-line, as it were ; but his chief value is as a destroyer of mice, 

 ground grubs, and other insects. He has certain bad habits. Like the Butcher- 

 bird, he will gobble up small nestlings in his native haunts, and, given the 

 opportunity, will make no bones about selecting a plump chick or duckling 

 when its mother is off guard. I remember an old shepherd on the Murray 

 who had a pet Jackass and a clutch of young ducks, which every day on 

 his return to the hut counted one short. He accused everybody but the 

 true culprit of responsibility for his loss, until one day he caught Master 

 Jackass finishing one of the last of the surviving ducklings, and the my.stery 

 was explained. 



The jackass makes no true nest, but selecting a hollow spout in the limb 

 of a gum-tree, lays her two or three rounded white eggs on the decayed 

 wood — placed together so carelessly that it is not an uncommon thing for her 

 to accidentally tumble one out on the ground on entering or leaving the 

 opening into the stem. Occasionally one lays her eggs in a hole excavated 

 in the side of a white ant (termite) nest. 



