Vol. III. 

 1904 



MlLLIGAN, Notes on a Trip to the Wongan Hills, W.A. 2 I Q 



after Bishop Salvado, the founder of the Mission), and the other 

 the Y Y plain. At the base of the Hills a depressed tract of 

 moist saline country was found, in which salt or brackish lakes 

 formed, one of them, Lake Hinds, being several thousand acres 

 in extent. 



The Hills themselves form a very conspicuous object in the 

 surrounding country, are about 1,200 feet above sea level, and 

 about 8 miles in length. They are flat-topped, and composed 

 of ferruginous conglomerate, which overlies country rock. They 

 are seared with gullies and marked with abrupt, bold escarpments, 

 bluffs, and declivities. A remarkable feature in their vegetation 

 is the gimlet gum thickets, which much resemble the " Whipstick " 

 (a species of mallee) scrub near Bendigo, Victoria. Frequently 

 whole belts of these gums were found prostrate, caused by 

 " white ants." 



BIRDS. — The results of the expedition were most gratifying 

 from every point of view. We collected 130 skins for the 

 Western Australian Museum, included in which were those of 

 such uncommon forms as Drymaoedus pallidas (?), Hylacola 

 cauta, Calamanthus montanellus , Malurus pulcherrimus, Malurus 

 leucopterus, Cinclosoma castanonotum , Sericornis brunnea, Miso- 

 cahus palliolatus, Glycy phila albifrons, Cladorhynchus leuco- 

 cephalus, Petrceca goodenovi , and a new Ptilotis, hereafter 

 described. Added to this we had the opportunity of making 

 close observation of the habits of many of these species and their 

 young. We also secured many nests and eggs, particularly 

 those of Microeca assimilis, Glycyphila albifrons, Glycy phila 

 ocularis, and Petroeca goodenovi . 



Our great disappointment was to find that the Gnous (Lipoa 

 ocellata) and the Black-throated Coachwhip-Birds (Psophodcs 

 nigrogularis) had abandoned the locality. Even up to. recent 

 times, the former must have been numerous everywhere in the 

 Hills for we met with hundreds of their old nest-mounds. These 

 had been constructed not only in the rich red alluvial soils at 

 the bases of the Hills, but also in the pocket-gullies on the hill- 

 sides, and even on the rocky brows of the hills in the broken 

 conglomerate and gravel. Sites of the last-mentioned descrip- 

 tion, it is conceived, would not have been chosen by the birds 

 if more suitable ones had been available. One is prompted to 

 ask, " Why have the birds deserted the locality ? " I conjectured 

 at the time that it was owing to the pastoral lessees " firing " 

 the scrubs from time to time in the summer season so as to 

 obtain a growth of sweet "feed " for stock after the first autumn 

 rains — a practice much in vogue in Western Australia.* On 

 stating my theory to an old resident of Mogumber, who had 

 been a frequent visitor to the Hills in search of minerals, he 

 disagreed with it, and expressed the opinion that the desertion 

 was due to the severe drought which afflicted the country some 



* Too much so in Australia generally. —Eds. 



