o^g'] Wilson, Ornithological Trip to Nhill District. 95 



grass and feathers from a young emu, and lined with small 

 eucalypt leaves. It contained three fresh eggs. All three 

 birds were very tame, and kept flying in and out of the hollow 

 whilst I was sitting on a limb about two feet from the entrance. 

 Four feet higher up a pair of Red- tipped Pardalotes were 

 building a nest, and exhibited very little fear. 



Wherever a few Grey Box trees grew, there would be found 

 a family of Brown Tree-creepers, Climacteris scandens, and never 

 far away would also be a pair of Babblers, Pomatorhinus 

 temporalis. A large hollow near the house was occupied by a 

 pair of Laughing Kingfishers, Dacelo gigas, and their family 

 was hatched out soon after our arrival. The parent birds were 

 singularly quiet, and I heard them laughing only on one 

 occasion during my fortnight's stay. On 4th October I observed 

 two Sacred Kingfishers, Halcyon sanctus, at the Nhill swamp. 

 This is a week earlier than I have noted them in the vicinity 

 of Melbourne. 



Black-backed Magpies were very plentiful, and, whilst most 

 of them were accompanied by their young, a few were still 

 sitting on eggs. One was observed devouring one of the large 

 mallee cockroaches, Geoscafiheus robustus. Only two colonies 

 of Choughs were noticed, and they had long since concluded 

 their nesting operations. Black-winged Bell-Magpies, Strepera 

 mclanoptera, are rather rare hereabouts, and some had reared 

 their young before my arrival. I succeeded in locating one 

 nest built in a very slender sapling, that contained a pair of 

 hard-set eggs. These birds are very wary, and silentlv leave 

 the nest long before one gets anywhere near it. 



There are some fine swamps in the vicinity that are generally 

 tenanted by hosts of wild-fowl. They had all been dried up 

 in the recent drought, and, having only been lately filled again, 

 very little bird-life was present. The only species I noted 

 were Mountain-Duck, Maned Goose, Black-throated Grebe, 

 Little Cormorant, Spur-winged Plover, and White-fronted 

 Heron. Mr. Oldfield is an adept at imitating the alarm call 

 of the Noisy Miner, and would frequently amuse me by giving 

 it when ducks or parrots were flying overhead. The effect 

 was marvellous, the parrots immediately darting for the most 

 bushy tree available, whilst the ducks dropped instantly into 

 the water, expecting every moment to be attacked by a falcon 

 or hawk. Mr. Oldfield remarked that it was an excellent 

 artifice to utilize when duck-shooting, and had frequently stood 

 him in good stead when the birds refused to alight within 

 gunshot of him. Black-breasted Plover, Zonifer pectoralis, 

 frequented the open paddocks, and from their actions I judged 

 them to be nesting. 



Mr. W. Blucher showed me two fine old nests of the Wedge- 



