THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 15f> 



feign well an injury or youthful weakness to distract your atten- 

 tion from the nest of eggs or young that these parent birds have 

 been forced to leave owing to your presence. I fear their decoy 

 hopes are not as advantageous to them as "silence is golden" 

 would be, for the nest would seldom be found were it not for 

 their own aid in rising from the nest and plainly saying by their 

 action, " There it is." All you have now to do is to look for it 

 within the limited bounds prescribed for you. 



The young are early models of the old. Before leaving the 

 saucer-shaped nest of grass material the outer two rectrices are 

 white, each with a central longitudinal dark line, and this before 

 these feathers are an inch in length. The little birds early learn 

 to catch the worms, which appear after a heavy rainfall in such 

 plenty that juvenile Pipits soon find themselves doing well in 

 business.. 



The Bush Larks, of which the more familiar is Horsfield's, 

 belong to the family Alandidse (a great songstress), which is 

 most strongly represented in America, the land of singing birds, 

 with the champion of all — the mocking bird. 



The only specimen obtained by myself corresponds witli Dr. 

 Sharpe's description for Mirafra secimda. This bird somewhat 

 resembles the Pipit, but as it has a rather coniferous bill, and is 

 of shorter dimensions than the Pipit, the difference is always 

 observable in any season of plumage, and even in the field with a 

 close view, which is about the only one you can get of the bird 

 when upon the ground, as it so closely assimilates with it. The 

 song of the bird is comparable with recognized singers of quality, 

 and with the Black Fantail, Sauloprocta motacilloides, V. & H., 

 it sings at night, but with a greater variety of music than that of 

 the Fantail. On or about the longest day of the year, when the 

 setting of the sun and the rising of the moon are comparatively 

 close together, about nine o'clock in the evening many birds 

 seem to have lost their reckoning, for they whistle and sing, 

 warble and call quite apart from their ordinary course of nightly 

 movements. 



Placing the classification of Australian birds by Dr. Ramsay 

 alongside that of Dr. Sharpe, I find the former shows one species 

 of this genus while the latter recognizes two, with the following 

 key for the latest edition (M. secimda) : — Eyebrow tawny-buff, 

 shoulder of wing almost entirely rufous, the median and greater 

 coverts showing scarcely any black bases to the feathers. It is 

 with this description that the local one agrees, rather than with 

 M. Horsjieldi, Gould. 



Other than the two mentioned familiar ground birds is a third 

 species. The Striated Field Lark, Calamanthus fuliginosus, V. 

 and H. (VV)., here is an uncommon bird, preferring the marshy 

 low growth of the sea border to the rough grassy flats of the 



