PARSONS— A Motor Trip to Western Queensland. 13 



and was at a time when the vast inland plains never looked bet- 

 ter, the country having been blessed with copious rains which 

 caused the herbage to quickly respond, and the whole country- 

 side was beautifully green with either waving fields of cane 

 grass or varying kinds of saltbush. 



We left Adelaide b^;^ motor on August 21st. 1920, and 

 motored up the northern line to Hawker. Here we j)ut the car 

 on a truck and trucked it. to Hergott Springs, because the road 

 from Hawker to Hergott was badly cut about by washouts, 

 caused by the heavy rains. A day was spent at Hergott in get- 

 ting sup])lies and packing our load securely, and I managed to 

 get out for about twoihours for a walk in a direction due east 

 from the town. I had barely left the station yard before a 

 strange note arrested my attention. It was a low, swc^t mono- 

 tone whistle, repeated about eight or ten times in quick succes- 

 sion, and alhough tlie whistling continued close to me, yet I 

 could see no bird. 1 was on an almost bare, inhospitable, stony 

 plain, and it was quite five minutes before I was able to locate 

 the little bird, standing with its back to me, which 

 so well harmonised with the stones that but for its moving a 

 few feet, I should never have seen it. It was my first glimpse 

 of a living desert chat. These birds were afterwards constantly 

 met with on all the stony patches right from Hergott Springs 

 in South Australia, to well over the tropic in Queensland, but 

 always singly or in pairs. They do not group together in the 

 way that the Epthianura do. The desert chats were nesting. 

 Three nests were noticed, each containing three young birds. 



I walked as far as the Frome River, which was quite dry, 

 but the bed of the river could be traced by the larger bushes 

 and scattered trees, llcve an Amytis was tluslied, probably Anii/- 

 tis goydrri. it being very plainly marked, and with a short, thick 

 bill. There were many nests of the short-billed crow, contain- 

 ing five, and in one case, six eggs. A Rrown Hawk flew from a 

 nest which was lined Avith green leaves, but contained no eggs. 

 The pale form of the (Ireenie {rtUotix penicillata leilaralnisis) 

 aiul the White-shouldered Caterpillar-eater were much in evi- 

 dence. 



Next morning, August 27th, we started in earnest on our 

 long tour, taking the Rirdsville track, past the date plantation 

 at Lake Harry, which I was told was bearing good fruit, and 

 went on to Dulkaninna Station, which is owned by Sinclair, 

 Scott & Co.. and used as a depot for storing fat cattle prepara- 

 tory to trucking. Although it doesn't seem much to write that 

 we went from Hergott to Dulkaninna, yet the distance was not 

 so vpry easy to negotiate because the track in places was very 



