Bird Life on Yanko Creek , N.S.W.



335



feathers coming through, the secondaries of the wings were dull

bottle-green. The bird was in good condition, and it is a thousand

pities it succumbed. Had I taken it and reared it by hand, I

believe it would have lived.


The nest was built of fine sticks on the top of a collection of

dead branches, and resembled a wood-pigeon’s. It was about nine

feet up in a dark corner of one of the roosting houses.


The female touraco was an excellent mother up to the 4th of

September, and when the young bird was first hatched (as I sup¬

posed) pecked at my hand when I climbed up one day in early August,

thinking that she was still on eggs which were addled. When I

had a fleeting glimpse of what looked like a black toad, I hastily

descended.


The young bird had not yet acquired the formation of the

adult’s feet, that is with two toes in front and two at the hack, as in

the case of the Cuckoo ; its feet showed no sign of this, although

the bird was in no way malformed. The three front toes were

perfectly level in each foot, with the back toe in the ordinary

position.


The bird must have been quite a month old.


Hubert D. Astley.



BIRD LIFE ON YANKO CREEK N.S.W.


By Charles Barrett, C.M.Z.S., R.A.O.U., Melbourne.


[We are indebted to “The Emu ’’ for this interesting article.]


Rambles in Riverina in the nesting season are not, perhaps,

always so profitable as those I enjoyed in November, 1913. I owed

my success to the late Mr. Max Eggar, a keen observer, who was

intimately acquainted with the bird life of Jerilderie and surrounding

districts. Delightful days we spent together, wandering across the

plains and along the banks of Yanko Creek. My companion seemed

to know the nesting haunt of every species within a radius of 40

miles. I arrived in Jerilderie with 12 dozen plates, and few

remained unexposed when I left. Many of the photographs

obtained were of subjects that have rarely faced a camera. My



