THE VICTOKIAN NATURALIST. 165 



valleys and hillsides of our Gippsland forests, and birds, like 

 other creatures, prefer the sunshine, its cheer, and the better 

 food of more open country. Honey-eaters fringe the heavy 

 timber, and Red-tailed, Galyptorhynclius stellatus, Wagl., and 

 White-tailed Cockatoos, Gahjptorlnjnclius baudini, Vigors., go 

 further in to screech and hunt large grubs such as the Aboriginals 

 call " bardees." Fifty miles due west of Albany there is a 

 peculiar collection of one-shaped houses. This is Denmark, a 

 saw-milling township of some 2,000 people. They rent houses 

 as much alike as, a writer has pleasantly said, a group of our 

 " Tommy Atkins." Near its saw-dust fire, which has burned 

 day and night for years, the Boobook Owl came one night and 

 called, and it is not unlikely other owls were about the place, 

 as there are a fair number of rodents to supply them with food. 



The surroundings of Denmark are deeply interesting for the 

 general naturalist as well as for the " bird-man." Through it, 

 and between well-worn sides, the River Denmark has made its 

 way to a large lake three miles down-stream that connects with 

 the sea when the bar is not silted up. Upon this expanse of 

 water, with a coast-line of nearly 120 miles, owing to its indents 

 and innumerable bays, the water birds revel. Pelicans are said 

 to breed there, but the peace of the latter is now much dis- 

 turbed, and I expect that their old breeding haunts will soon 

 cease to exist. I watched one native bird in captivity cleansing 

 its plumage. It used the tip of its bill for cleaning the distal 

 feathers, or the edges of the different parts of the mandibles were 

 useful according as how near the feathers were, so that the tip of 

 the bill could not be used. The sides of the head, first one and 

 then the other, were used to brush the wing coverts, upper first, 

 followed by attention to the lower. The bird rushed its huge 

 bill along the back feathers as if it was a rapier, and extended its 

 neck into a grotesque figure wheii it wanted to preen the lower 

 neck plumes. 



Sea Eagles, Haliattus leucogaster, Gmelin, came from their 

 ocean feeding grounds daily to a nest about two miles inland. It 

 was situated some 150 feet from the ground, in a large eucalypl, 

 and to timid people seemed only to be got at by the wind. It 

 was a wonderful pile of faggots. On the Abrolhos Islands I 

 found I could get two nests without the necessity of trying my 

 nerves. One I stepped into from the ground and turned the 

 fledged young one out for a time, so that I might sit in it to try 

 its comfort. To the other I simply had to walk up a itw rocks 

 that once formed part of a cliff. Judging by the manner which 

 a pair continued to sail round the nest, and the new material of 

 the upper portion of it, I should say they were about to lay their 

 eggs, as the time of laying varies very much. The nest was not 

 more than 15 feet above high-water mark, and placed between 



