^°',g,^^] Stray Feathers. 263 



habitatcd areas ; the birds were always a mile or two from any 

 town. 



The Mistletoe-Bird's nest is the only one I have searched for 

 repeatedly without success. In November, igi2, a i)air of the 

 bright little birds came about the Maryborough (Vic.) cemetery. 

 To them I devoted many hours. I found them hard to locate 

 when the ecstatic male did not chance to be in talkative vein. 

 But that was not often. He always kept to the tree-tops, and 

 freely gave voice to a hard, sweet, penetrating note, that sounded 

 like " A-white-a-whit-a-whit." Then would come i;sually a rapid 

 run of notes — " Tang-tang-tang-tang-tang-tang." The ventri- 

 loquial element in the notes made it difficult to place the bird, 

 and then he would flit away so rapidly, and at such a height, that 

 the eye could not possibly follow him. 



Throughout the following winter I heard and saw nothing of the 

 birds, but they were in evidence again in the spring of 1913. 

 " Tar-tar-tar " the male called in greeting, and this was followed 

 quickly by the " Whit-a " run of notes. The South Austrahan 

 session of the R.A.O.U. intervened just then, and when I returned 

 the birds were in possession of three grey and white fledgelings, 

 which actively followed their parents. Evidently the adult birds 

 did not leave the locality in the following autumn. On 3rd April 

 and loth May, 1914, I met the male bird again. He was as happy 

 as ever, and sat preening his feathers in a eucalypt ; but on both 

 occasions the ecstatic spring note was absent. In its stead, 

 however, the bird uttered a i^un of sweet notes, rather richer than 

 the usual somewhat hard bar. (It was on this occasion that I 

 saw one of the prettiest sights afforded me by a bird. A flash of 

 red went past, and the next moment a Scarlet-breasted Robin 

 perched on the bowed head of a graceful angelic marble figure, 

 which, with outspread wings, surmounted a grave.) 



I was not able to see much of the Mistletoe-Birds in the spring 

 of 1914, and, after that, did not renew acquaintance with them 

 till 6th Octotjer, 1915. On that day I heard a note akin to the 

 frog-like rattle of the Red-capped Robin {Petroica goodenovii). 

 It came from a male Diccemn, which sat in a low sapling })reening 

 its beautiful red and blue feathers in the sunshine. Within the 

 next half-hour both male and female visited a dozen different 

 bushes about the hillside, i:)ut always their circles brought them 

 back to one particular cluster only four feet from the ground. Close 

 examination of this bush showed me the faintest little cluster of 

 soft threads suspended from a branchlet. These " foundation " 

 strands were not added to during the next few days, and I had 

 to leave Victoria without having secured a " sitting " from the 

 birds. All the more cordially, therefore, do I congratulate Messrs. 

 Lawrence and Littlejohns on the splendid photographs of Dicceum 

 hirundinaceum published in The Emu* — A. H. Chisholm. East 

 Brisbane (Qld.), 19/2/16. 



* Vol. XV., part 3, p. 166. 



