^iQos^'l MiLLlGAN, Notes on Trip to Yandmwoka District, W.A. i 55 



tion, but his dawn notes resemble the foUowing : — " Toll-de-lol- 

 fah " (the last note long drawn out and of liquid sweetness) ; 

 then twice and quickly repeated in a lower key — " You chatterbox ; " 

 then in a higher key and with very full, rounded notes, and twice 

 repeated — " Sweet after forty." So charmed was I with the song 

 and appearance of these birds that I determined to secure one to 

 take home with me. Through the kind offices of Mr. Lee Steere, 

 I eventually managed to get one from one of the station hands, 

 and my captive has furnished me with many opportunities of study. 

 The diet I give him is principally that of meat, but he has a dis- 

 tinct hking for oatmeal or pollard paste, and a still greater one 

 for grapes. For the latter he will leave his meat food at once. 

 The meat when offered is invariably seized with the bill and if 

 small is threshed on the spell and then run through the mandibles. 

 If large, it is similarly seized, and with surprising quickness is 

 tucked under one foot and torn to pieces, after the manner of some 

 birds of prey. The bird is a very small eater — Gymnorhina dor- 

 salis will, as I have tested, eat four times as much at one meal. 

 After satiety, a ' ' larder ' ' is made of any surplus meat in a con- 

 venient corner of the cage. Probably the fact of the slender 

 appetite of these birds, in combination with a difficulty in obtaining 

 regular supplies when wanted, has led to the natural habit of the 

 Butcher-Birds in making their " larders." My captive began 

 to moult in the middle of January last (he is a one-year-old bird) 

 but up to the present (the middle of February) the moult is not 

 completed. The breast feathers have changed from a discoloured 

 white to pure white ; the brown gorget on the chest shows a black 

 area on its lower margin ; the brown feathers of the sides of the 

 head and face are being supplanted by black ones ; the mantle 

 and neck feathers have changed from l3rown to black, but these 

 latter, in turn, are changing to white, the white colour beginning 

 on the outer margins of the feathers. Being anxious to ascertain 

 whether these birds had the sense of smell developed as regards 

 their food, I made and repeated the following test : — Approaching 

 with an empty hand concealed behind my back, the bird was in- 

 different to my approach. Returning inside the house and coming 

 back with my hand similarly concealed, but containing meat, the 

 bird at once fluttered its wings and uttered its baby cry for food. 

 Why should the members of the genus Gymnorhina be ambulators 

 and the members of the genus Cracticus be hoppers ? Has the 

 continuous search for food of the former on the ground brought 

 about, by degrees, ambulation ? 



These birds build their nests in the flooded gums. One pair, 

 on Ebano camp, had their nest in one of these trees and brought 

 out their young, three in number. The photograph (Plate X.) 

 shows a native climbing the tree for the nest. The aboriginal name 

 is " Cudgeego." 



Pachycephala jalcata (Gould). — I am in doubt whether I am 

 correct in identifying this species as the above, for the same reason 

 that I am in doubt whether it is really separable from P. riifiventris. 



