Vol. Ill, 

 1903 



Fletcher, Bird Notes from Wilmot, Tasmania. c 1 



had was particularly fond of dough and oatmeal. Sometimes this 

 bird would come early in the morning, sit on the verandah, and 

 whistle away until his breakfast was placed for him. During 

 the breeding season these birds occasionally utter a peculiar call 

 resembling two pieces of tin struck quickly and sharply together. 

 I was very much amused by the action of a Shrike-Thrush once. 

 He was procuring bark for a nest. Some bee-hives stood near, 

 covered with stringybark, and the bird seized a strip of bark in 

 his beak and hopped backwards. The bark yielded as he hopped, 

 but he miscalculated the length of the sheet of bark, and the last 

 hop landing on nothing, he and the bark turned a somersault 

 on to the ground. Nothing daunted, however, he seized the 

 bark and flew away. 



Cuckoos always seem to leave this mountain district about 

 February. In April they return for a few days, and leave us 

 again for a warmer climate. I think they must go down to the 

 harvest fields on the lower lands. 



A pair of Swallows (Hirundo neoxena) built under a corner 

 of the verandah this season. A fact particularly interesting was 

 their fondness for music. Whenever the piano was played they 

 would become very excited, and would fly (singing) round and 

 round the windows or dart into the schoolroom. Sometimes 

 they were content to sit on the fence and would sing as if their 

 little throats would burst. Another case worth mentioning 

 was of a pet Magpie. He was particularly fond of the musical 

 scales, and would try to run up them with his voice (?) ; several 

 notes he got quite correctly. If lively tunes were played he would 

 whistle his loudest, and if the tune were changed to a sad one 

 his voice would drop to a gurgle. 



To return to the Swallows. I once had two eggs, half incubated, 

 of this species sent to me, as well as the female bird. Poor thing, 

 she was dead, and had been taken off her nest with her wings 

 tightly bound round with a cruel thread wound round and round 

 her little body. Evidently she had selected the thread when 

 lining the nest, and in some way when tucking her eggs under 

 her she had got it fatally round, and being unable to move had 

 starved to death. Unfortunately decomposition was so far 

 advanced that I could not skin her. 



{To be continued}) 



Some Notes on Vernacular Names. 



By H. Kendall. 



As 1 a preliminary step towards the work of the sub-committee 

 appointed at the last annual meeting of the Aust. O.U. to consider 

 and arrange for a revision of the vernacular list of Australian birds 

 now in common use (Australasian Association for the Advance- 

 ment of Science, Sydney, 1898) some notes have been gathered 

 for consideration by members of the Union. » 



