Bird Life about Morce.



179



but very slender, with a careful and measured gait—a real regal bird.

We were able to get within less than ten yards of them to admire their

beauty. Here we also watched a native bear feeding on the low

branches of a gum-tree ; we should have dearly loved to bring it along

as it was almost within reach—but one might just as well be honest—

we were afraid of being caught!


Our excursions into the surroundings of Moree, however prolific

otherwise, were not crowned with success in finding the object of our

visit—the White-winged Blue Wren. None of the residents (and we

asked many) had ever seen or heard of it. There was but one thing

left, and that was to go out into the plains and try to locate them there,

though we feared this, too, would be hopeless, since the senseless

method of using rabbit poison had cleared out first and foremost all

birds thereabouts. Still we went. It was frightfully hot—never a day

below 108° Fahr. in the shade of the hotel verandah. The ground we

passed over was dry and crumbly, and threw up again the enormous

heat stored in it. In fact, it was so contracted that great fissures had

appeared, often the width of a hand, and seemingly of an interminable

depth. As far as the eye could reach nothing could be seen but an

endless stretch of the Roly-Poly scrub. This weed is an annual. It

shoots up a small stem, the thickness of a finger, a few inches above the

ground, then spreads out, developing into an even huge ball from

4 to 8 feet high. Succulent and liked by the cattle when green and

young, it grows and dries very rapidly, producing exceptionally

prickly, needle-like thorns. Then the main stem rots, the body

remaining intact, the wind catches these prickly balls and rolls them

along at a tremendous pace. In their mad career they mount those

bushes still standing, going “ roly-poly ” over them until they strike

the station fence, where we have seen them piled up 20 and 30 feet deep.

Rain and heat soon destroy this barrier.


This is the home of the White-winged Blue Wren. It was

a happy hour when we located the first pair, but to catch them was

another matter. They refused to come to a decoy (in this case a

common Blue Wren) and the bird-lime, exposed to this fierce heat,

became absolutely useless, whilst mealworms had no attraction for them.

They are exceptionally shy birds, always hiding ; the male seldom



