Vol. IV, 

 1905 



I Legge, Birds Observed at the Great Lake. lOT. 



List of Birds Observed at the Great Lake in the 

 Month of March. 



By Col. W. V. Legge, F.Z.S., &c. 



{Read before the A.O.U., Sydney Session, ^otk November, 1904.) 

 The Great Lake is the largest sheet of water in Tasmania, and 

 likewise the most extensive for its elevation above sea level in 

 Australasia. It is 28,000 acres in extent, and its altitude is 

 3,330 feet. The so-called Lake Plateau of Tasmania, when 

 viewed in connection with its elevation above the sea, the large 

 number of lakes, great and small, which are embedded among 

 its hill ranges, and the noble tier of lofty basaltic buttresses which 

 uphold it on the north-western side, can well be looked upon as 

 one of the most remarkable features of the land area of Aus- 

 tralasia. Its chief point of interest, particularly for the angler, 

 is the lake under consideration. The usual route to this fisher- 

 man's paradise is by way of Bothwell, from the south ; and by 

 it the south-eastern side of the Plateau is negotiated by a 

 gradually ascending road from the lowlands. Of late years, 

 however, a much shorter and from a scenic point of view a 

 better track has been opened up via the pretty township of 

 Deloraine, from which a drive of 10 miles takes one to the foot 

 of the lofty outlier of the Great Western Mountains known as 

 Quamby Bluff. From thence a horse and cart track ascends 

 the gorge of the Liffey River and traverses a fine belt of beech 

 forest, in which a few species of hill birds, such as Sericornis 

 humilis,- Acanthiza ewingi, Geocichla macrorhyncha, Collyrio- 

 cincla rectirostris, and Sirepcra fuliginosa, are to be noticed. The 

 track, after winding upwards for nine miles, passes out to the 

 summit of the range, reaching at the Pine Lake an altitude of 

 3,700 feet or thereabouts, and descends through the hills of 

 the Plateau to the shores of the Great Lake, the distance being 

 23! miles only from Deloraine. Until this new northern road 

 was opened, mainly by the enterprise of some of the residents 

 of this township, the upper end of the lake was practically 

 unknown to all except the hill shepherds of the midland pas- 

 toralists, and thus, ornithologically, was a terra incognita. At 

 the present time there are two fine sailing boats, owned by 

 gentlemen of Deloraine, stationed at the north end, and until 

 recently there was a police station contiguous to the tourists' 

 hut, erected by the Improvement Association of Deloraine. 

 The policeman's cottage has twice furnished the writer with 

 comfortable quarters, and was at the time tenanted by a most 

 observant and intelligent trooper, Mr. F. Archer, who was in 

 every way a field naturalist, with a keen taste for botany and 

 natural history. The assistance of such an ally in a remote 

 spot such as this, was, as may be imagined, most useful, and 

 much valuable information was gleaned from him during my 

 trips. 



The contour of the Great Lake is most singular, the character- 



