60 TIIK VICTORIAN NATURALIST. [Vol. XXV. 



WILD LIFE OF THE MURRAY SWAMPS. 



By a. H. E. Mattingley, C.M.Z.S. 



{Read hef ore the Field Naturalists^ Cluh of Victoria, ISth April, 1908.) 



For fifty miles or so up tlie River Murray from Echuca the 

 stream is lined on either side by a series of swamps, which in a 

 normal season teem with bird-life. In summer the district is a 

 Red-gum, Eucalyptus rostrata, forest, and one can drive from 

 place to place in search of specimens, but at the nesting season, 

 which occurs in spring, the waters of the Murray, increased by 

 the melting of the winter snows at its sources in the Australian 

 Alps, inundate the swamps, and cover the level country, so that 

 it becomes a vast inland lake. To get about then it is necessary 

 to employ flat-bottomed boats, and pole or paddle wherever you 

 want to go. 



It was under the latter conditions, during November, that a 

 friend and myself spent some ten days in the flooded forest, 

 seeking for information about the nesting habits of the many land, 

 and water birds which resort there in the^ breeding season. At 

 that time they are safe from many of their enemies, and close to 

 large supplies of frogs, yabbies (freshwater crayfish), snails, &c., 

 on which to subsist. 



After a train journey of about i8o miles, we reached Mathoura 

 (a station on the Echuca-Deniliquin line) late in the afternoon. 

 As we crossed the Murray at Echuca we had noticed that the 

 stream was much higher than when we made a similar trip the 

 previous year, and we wondered whether we would be able to 

 reach our destination, some eight miles from Mathoura, with all 

 the heavy baggage we had brought with us. However, on 

 arrival, we found a large flat-bottomed boat provided for us 

 instead of the orthodox buggy we had expected. 



Having stowed our baggage safely in the somewhat rickety 

 boat, we proceeded up the Gulpha Creek, paddling against the 

 stream, which was running very swiftly. Our course was marked 

 out by picturesque Red-gums, Eucalyptus rostrata, on either hand, 

 which threw their shadows across the water. Everything was 

 calm and beautiful ; the air, warm and balmy, and fragrant with 

 the aromatic odour of the eucalypts, gave promise of fine weather 

 for some time, and in this respect we were not disappointed. 



Near the place of embarkation we had noticed a Brown 

 Tree-creeper, Climacteris scandens, carrying food to its nestlings 

 in the hollow spout of a box-tree. A colony of Welcome 

 Swallows, llirundo neoxena, skimmed gracefully over the water, 

 catching insects for their progeny snugly cradled in mud 

 nests, shaped like a bisected bowl, which they had built 

 under an adjacent bridge. Occasionally one of these birds 

 would dip its beak into the water and take a drink while 



