^°905^' J D'OmbrAIN, Some Birds of the Caster ton District. \ 6 



o 



To show with what ease the young Black Ducks can reach the 

 water without their parents' aid, on 25th September, 190J, a nest 

 was discovered in a hole in a tree. Height of hole was about 20 

 feet ; tree in a creek. On climbing up seven young ones and two 

 eggs were seen ; one young bird, taking fright, jumped out of the 

 nest into the water. The remaining six " stampeded " and 

 " followed their leader," and reached the water apparently none 

 the worse for their hasty descent. 



MusK-DucK {Biziura lobata). — On a dam Mr. M'Lennan saw what 

 was to him a peculiar-looking Duck. The bird fluttered along 

 the surface of the water for about 20 yards, then rose up, and was 

 making off, when he shot it. On picking it up it turned out to be 

 a Musk-Duck. It is seldom these birds are seen in actual flight. 



Lesser Masked Owl [Strix delicaiula). — Since my last notes on 

 this bird appeared* Mr. M'Lennan found a nest of the species in a 

 curious way. He flushed a bird from a dead tree. This bird flew 

 at once to a hole in a green tree close by. In the hole were four 

 Iresh eggs, which he collected for his cabinet. Exactly a month 

 later he revisited the tree, when an Owl flew out of the hole. Again 

 climbing the tree he found another clutch of four eggs, which he 

 left to incubate. In a full three weeks' time he insj^ected the hole 

 to see if the young were ready for my camera, when to his astonish- 

 ment there were now five eggs in the hollow ! The bird had flown 

 off, and we think that either the four eggs proved non-fertile and 

 the bird had commenced another clutch or else had laid another 

 egg, completing a clutch of five, soon after the visit to the hole. 



Birds of the Upper Yarra. 



By a. G. Campbell, Melbourne. 



In the list which is given hereafter are tabulated only those birds 

 which were identified during a ten days' trip early in the month of 

 December, but as this list includes doubtless all the regular in- 

 habitants, it will prove useful for reference. 



In the mountamous and heavily-timbered regions about the 

 head waters of the Yarra birds are not in abundance — in fact, 

 it seems to hold good that the heavier the timber the scarcer the 

 bird-hfe, and there are tracts that are practicaUy forest solitudes. 

 As one proceeds up the valley from Contention Creek, the last 

 tributary of any importance, birds such as Gymnorhina and the 

 StrepercB, which love the more open country, where the river flats 

 and gently sloping hillsides abound with food, are left behind, 

 and tfie feathered mhabitants, without such common birds among 

 them, are then less noticeable. Graucalus, Malurus, Rhipiditra 

 tricolor, Ptilonorhynchus, Cracticus, Pachycephala rufivoitris, Acan- 

 thochcera, the Artami, Mgintha, Dacelo, and Mgialitis are also left 

 behind, and as the ranges narrow in and become stfll more pre- 



* Emu, vol. iv., p. 127. 



