THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 161 



The place chosen was generally under a bush or thick vegetation, 

 and the birds seemed to be fond of frequenting their ground and 

 uttering their clear liquid notes, which can hardly be called a 

 song; and when a bird was heard warbling in the thicket we 

 were almost sure of finding a playing ground at the place where 

 we had heard the bird. The loud call of Spalding's Orthonyx 

 was also several times heard, and occasionally we got a glimpse 

 of them as they hurried away, keeping on the ground as much as 

 possible, and dodging behind the rocks. We always knew when 

 we were in the locality of these birds by seeing the dead leaves, 

 by which the surface was more or less covered, scraped up and 

 scattered about as they hunted for their insect food. They 

 often seem to go about in companies, and occasionally about a 

 dozen birds would collect together on a rock and go through all 

 sorts of antics, uttering at the same time curious sounds, and 

 on being disturbed they would all scuttle away in different 

 directions. Several unfinished nests were found, either built on 

 the ground or on a rock, up against some object. They were 

 large domed structures of stick and leaves, lined plentifully with 

 green moss. They lay one white egg. The male Coachwhip 

 Bird, Psophodes crepitans, was heard uttering its note. His mate 

 was probably nesting, and therefore could not finish up with her 

 " twite-twite," which otherwise she generally does. The note 

 varies slightly from the southern form. We saw traces of the 

 Tree Kangaroo, and also of the Tiger Cat, and passed a Scrub 

 Turkey (Tallegalla) mound, but there were no eggs yet. The 

 track back to the clear space on the rocks, that the natives had 

 travelled along and marked, was at times difficult to follow, 

 especially among the big boulders, and we had to pass through 

 some curious places. Once our only means of progress was 

 through a long crevice between some rocks, and there was just 

 about room to move along, and at one part sideways. We then 

 came to a place where we could not trace any track, but found 

 after a time that the natives had climbed down to a small hole 

 between two big boulders, and wriggled through it into an 

 opening which enabled them to get on. We went the same way, 

 but I could not get through that hole in a hurry, and generally 

 got stuck when half way. 



Next day we took another journey to the mountain, but without 

 any natives, and climbed up to the same spot we had reached the 

 day previous. On the various broken rocks and boulders round the 

 base of the centre cone were many orchids of different kinds, but 

 mostly small, and the air was laden with the perfume of flowers ; 

 Lycopodium, a small fern, also grew in the crevices. When 

 looking down on the scrub below us the air seemed full of 

 melody of the calls of various birds. It was surprising how far up 

 the sound of their notes travelled. The Lesser White Goshawk, 



