182 FALCON I U.K. 



thick salt-bushes in a swamp, and about four feet from the surface of the shallow water. (.)ne 

 contained two e,!,'gs, the other, which I found in November, two youn;,' ones almost ready to lly, 

 and of a uniform dark srjoty colour. The old birds do not return to the nest in the following 

 seasons." 



Dr. \V. Macgillivray sends me the following notes Irom llroken Hill, in South-western 

 New South Wales: — " Cirrus i;:'iilJi is not often seen, in fact f had not seen any until September, 

 lyog, when a pair were searching a Polygoiunn swamp near Hancannia for prey, and again 

 another was noted at Langawirra over the crop." 



From Melbourne, Victoria, Mr. G. A. l\eartland writes me : — " 1 believe the Swamp 

 Plarrier {Ciirus gouldi ) is more numerous in \'ictoria than elsewhere, but still it has a 

 lairly wide range. They are partial to Hat country and cornfields. On several occasions I 

 ha\'e found thin stick nests on the ground amongst the standing corn at Melton and Werribee. 

 They li\e principally (^n frogs, snakes and lizards. At Benjeroop ^^r. |. Gabriel saw three eggs 

 belonging to a pair of these birds roll out of a slieaf of corn as it was tossed aside by the reaper 

 and binder." 



From Adelaide, South Australia, Dr. A. M. Morgan has sent me the following notes: — 

 " Cii'CHS i;oiildl is a fairly common bird in the southern parts of South Australia. I have not met 

 with it personally further north than Laura, where it was about equally common with Cinus 

 iissiiuilis: of the latter bird I ha\e received a skin from as far north as Lei;,'h"s Creek. C. ^Mildi 

 was a fairly common bird at (3eelong, \'ictoria, and in 1S84 I took a nest, containing five eggs, 

 in the samplnre Hats, near where the riHe butts used to be; one of the eggs was r/iuch smaller 

 than the others. On the 2nd No\'ember, 11S98, my brother, Mr. \i. Iv. Morgan, took six eggs 

 from a nest at the Finniss I'liver. On 17th November, iSqS, I visited the nest, and took a seventh 

 egg from it. The nest was built in a clump of bamboo reeds growing well out \n a swamp. It 

 was composed of dry reeds and spear grass, and was about two feet from the ground, the birds 

 having chosen a dry spot to build over. Most of the nests I have found ha\e been built on dry 

 land, generally in rushes or a standing crop. One nest I found near the b'inniss l^iver was in a 

 small clump of rushes standing out on a bare plain; this nest was empty; they are late 

 breeders here, the earliest clutch in my collection being taken on 2nd November, 1S9S, and the 

 latest i2th I^ecember, i-SijS. They live here chiefly on Ducks and wading birds, which they 

 pounce upon as they skim the reed beds. On several occasions on Lake Conewarree and Lake 

 Alexandria I have flushed a bird from a half eaten Black Duck or Teal." 



Mr. Malcolm Harrison writes me as follows from llobart, Tasmania: — "The "Swamp 

 Hawk," Cii'iiis i^aiildi, blonap., the C. assiiiiilis of Gould's " Birds of Australia," is \ery common 

 throughout Tasmania in swampy country, and consequently the wdiite eggs are by far the 

 commonest of those of all the Accipitres, partly from the numlier of the birds, but mostly from 

 their habit of nesting on the ground. They seem to ha\'e no predilection as to their nesting site, 

 and I have found them ec]ually ready to nest in the reeds on a swamp, on clumps of Saggs in 

 the bush, in growing crops, Ac. (Dn the Derwent Swamps below New Norfolk, where they are 

 always to be seen hunting, 1 have frequently seen the Bald Coots making desperate but clumsy 

 efforts to attack them in the air in defence of their yount,^" 



From notes made by L^r. Lonsdale Holden while resident in Tasinania, I have extracted 

 the following: — "On the 2yth October, 1886, I brought home one out of eleven Circus •;oii!di that 

 had been recently trapped, and nailed to an outhouse, on the Western l-'lains, Circular Head. 

 I noticed that the colour of the rump and the abdomen \aried a good deal on these birds. I 

 chose one of the darkest I could see. It was a female with a well-developed egg in the ovary, 

 extremely fat, and had the fur and skull of a mouse in the stomach. On the 15th November, 

 1886, I found a nest of Circus f^ou/di in a swamp near Circular Head Peninsula. It was almost 

 flat, and a very untidy structure formed of twigs, dried ferns, lined with hay, and placed on a 



