30 LITTLER, Notes on Sonic Birds Peculiar to Tasmania. |~ IS ^ m ,"\ , 



under and over the fallen timber. The powers of flight are rather 

 feeble, and only resorted to when moving from one locality to 

 another, or when suddenly frightened. It prefers to trust to its 

 legs. The song is weak, but is a rather pleasing run of notes, 

 uttered usually when perched on some eminence. 



Birds Occurring in the Region of the Norths West 



Cape. 



By Thomas Carter. 



Part I. 



Having resided at Point Cloates (a spur projecting at the base 

 of the North-West Cape Peninsula) for thirteen years, the following 

 list of birds may be regarded as tolerably complete, though, 

 doubtless, there are occasional visitors, and perhaps even resident 

 species, yet to be recorded, hs, my residence there has drawn to 

 an end, I have made the following notes (collected, say, within a 

 radius of ioo miles of the Point), trusting they may be of interest 

 to other field naturalists, and also perhaps of value as a record of 

 a hitherto unworked locality. Although Mr. Robert Hall always 

 refers to this district as western, I think it undoubtedly should be 

 considered as north-west, so many birds occurring there being 

 also found here, while none of the true south-west forms are met 

 with. Mr. Bernard Woodward's chart, in his guide to the Perth 

 (W.A.) Museum, divides this colony into three divisions, the 

 boundary between the N. W. and S.W. being near the Murchison 

 River, about where many S.W. forms seem to find their northern 

 limit, as the White-tailed Cockatoo (Caly ptorhynchus baudini) and 

 Magpie (Gymnorhina dorsalis). I speak from personal experience, 

 having traversed the country through to the vicinity of Albany. 



Point Cloates is one of the most westerly points of Australia, 

 and, as will be seen from the following notes, is splendidly situated 

 for observing the movements of the Limicolae (Plovers, &c.) The 

 country immediately off the beach is formed of high loose sand- 

 hills with short scrub, which, in some hollows sheltered from the 

 prevailing heavy south-west winds, forms rather dense patches 

 of thicket, where such birds as the Wedgebill (Sphenostoma), Pied 

 {Entomophila leucomelas) and Spiny-cheeked Honey-eaters (Acan- 

 thogenys rufigularis), Robins, Wrens {Maluri), and Redthroats 

 (Pyrrholcemus) find food and shelter. Behind these sandhills, 

 which attain a height of nearly 200 feet, is open undulating 

 " downs " country, almost destitute of bush, but clothed with 

 grass, annual plants, and several varieties of spinifex (Triodid). 

 This extends about 1 5 miles eastward, when the typical inland 

 N.W. country, with clay flats, thickets, grassy plains, and creeks 

 fringed with eucalypts (white gum or flooded gum of the interior) 

 is met with. Two miles N.E. from the homestead a stony range 



