1 ;!0 



FLATYCKRCIN.K 



Uuriiit,' a \-isit to Cobborah Station, Cobbora. New South Wales, about two hundred and 

 forty miles nortli-west of Sydney, I found these birds fairly plentiful in October, 1909. Mr. 

 Thos. ]'. Austin climbed to many of their nesting-places, but nearly all contained incubated 

 e>,'o;s or young birds. With a few exceptions the trees selected were all on the banks of the 

 Talbra^'ar liiver. On the 15111 October Mr. Austin cut out a nesting-place in a hollow limb of 

 a tree about twenty-two feet abo\e the ri\er, and found two recently hatcheil young, in down, 



and two chipped eggs. In another nesting-site 

 examined on the same day he found broken eggs 

 and some feathers ; evidently the sitting bird had 

 been caught by one of the large Lace Lizards 

 ( I 'araiius vai'iiis ), which are common in the locality. 

 Similar evidence of the sitting bird and eggs being 

 destroyed was also found in another nesting-hole 

 examined. On the i8tli October Mr. Austin 

 climbed to a nesting-place in a hollow- branch of 

 a low dead tree, and found it contained seven 

 newly hatched young. Another nesting-place in a 

 hollow limb of a green tree thirty-five feet from 

 the ground, contained six eggs, some of which 

 were chipped and on the point of hatching ; and 

 in another tree a nesting-place chopped out 

 re\ealed a single fresh egg. On one occasion, Mr. 

 Austin informed me, lie chopped out a nesting- 

 place in a branch of a tree o\'erhanging the 

 Talbragar River, and had placed his handker- 

 chief over a set of seven fresh eggs to protect them 

 from the chips, when suddenly the branch they 

 were in broke off, and it was precipitated, together 

 with the set of egi^s and handkerchief, into the 

 river. 



The figure of the nesting-place of the Rose-hill 

 I'arrakeet is reproduced from a photograph I took 

 on the I2tli October; it contained seven newly 

 hatched young. 



Birds that breed in holes in the ground, or in 

 trees, are not so secure as one would imagine 

 they would be in such situations, away from 

 observation and usually light. They too frequently 

 fall an easy prey to reptiles or other enemies, for 

 there are no means of escape from the ends of 

 tunnels in the earth, or at the extremities of holes in trees, and too often eggs or young, together 

 with the sitting birds, are captured and devoured, chiefly by dillerent species of lizards. .\s 

 I have pointed out elsewhere," the eggs of the Diamond l:!ird ( I'ardalotns pundatusj are, about 

 l^oseville, frequently eaten by the small Spot-sided Lizard i Egivnia wliitci ), and 1 have even 

 seen the pendant domed nests of the Rock Warbler (Oriiiiiia rnhruatd ), when built under rocks 

 and cave shelters, despoiled of their eggs by the Spiny-backed Water Lizard (Physignathts 

 Icsaii'i).] About Roseville and Lindfield the Blue-tongued Lizard (Tiliqua scincoides) was also a 

 common robber of eggs from hens' nests, but the paddocks in these districts being cut up of late 



* Antea, Vol. I., p. 315. t Anlea, Vol. II,, p. 227. 



A'r A ROSE-UIM, PAKHAKI.HT S NKSTIXfi-PLACE. 



