206 AIJUILIN/E 



" ( )nce when on the niounlains at Lithtjow my brother and 1 surprised a \\'edL;e-tailed 

 J£ai,'le that had just killed a nati\e bear, in fact it was not quite dead. My brother went home 

 and returned with a ,t;in-trap, of which I niultlf-d the teeth witli ra^s, and set it close to the 

 bear, which was layini,' at the butt of a tree, coverinj; the plate ol the tra[) with fallen leaves, 

 and securing; the chain of it to the tree. On returnin:; there from our shootm^' about lue hours 

 afterwards, as I expected we found the Eagle caught in tiie trap by one Ivj,. We killed it, and 

 it proved to be a large female witli the feathers of the head and neck pale fawn colour." 



Dr. W. Macgilli\ray writes me from iJroken Hill, in South-western New South Wales: — 

 " Every Sunday on my way to a mine, where I consulted once a week, ten miles south of Broken 

 Mill, I had an opportunity of observing a pair of I 'n\rtiis niuinx. They subsisted mostly on 

 rabbits, which were plentiful. They had their eyrie in a Gum si.\ty feet from the j^round, on a 

 sandy-bedded creek which ran at right anj^les to the road. Early in June 1 took two tresh e.ut^'s 

 from the nest; the latter was the usual hutje structure of sticks and branches that had evidently 

 been renewed, as the foundation was old ; the egg cavity was as usual Inied with green Gum 

 leaves and branchlets ; the birds sat on the nest until I drove up to tlie tree. It is interesting 

 to note that these eggs were laid two months belore this species usuallv lays in \ ictoria, and a 

 month later than 1 have notes of them laying in the Ciulf District in ( )ueensland. ( )n the under 

 surface of this nest were nests of the White-face ( Xcrophila Icucopsii} and Chestnut-eared Finch. 

 This Eagle laid again, and was sitting on eggs on the 4th August, but these eggs were taken by 

 some boys. She laid a third time, the young birds being taken from the nest in November. 

 Uroidui ividax is relentlessly persecuted by the pastoral ist on account ot its suppose proclivity 

 for lambs, which 1 do not thinis is justified. Very few pastoralists whom I have questioned on 

 the point ha\e actually seen an Eagle kill a health)' lamb, it is with them purely a matter of 

 assumption. 1 Ljrant that an h^aiile may sometimes be found eating a lamb, or the remains of a 

 lamb may be found about a feeding platform, but it must not be forgotten that Eagles feed on 

 cariion, and that the lamb was dead in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred before the Eaj^'le 

 touched it. The lambs more often than not killed by l'^a<.;les are usually the weaklings of the 

 season, and it is doubtful if they would survixe under any circumstances, and if killed off their 

 killing tends to raise the standard of tlie Hock ; it is one of nature's methods of culling out the 

 unfit. During nine years' residence in the district I liave seen many luii^les, and e.xamined some 

 hundreds of their nests and feeding platforms, and have not in any smgle instance found the 

 remains of a lamb in any one of them. The rabbit forms throughout this district their staple 

 food supply, its remains are to be found on every platform and nest, and littering the ground 

 below them, and freshly killed rabbits are found on every nest where there are younj; ones. 

 Under one nest on Langawirra Station, Mr. W. McLennan and I counted the remains of over 

 two hundred rabbits, and I maintain that the good done by the b^aijle in helping to keep down 

 this pest throughout the year more than compensates for a tew weakly lambs which may be 

 taken during the lambing season, which lasts only for two months at most. The pastoralist by 

 his want of judgment in ov'erstocking the country, and grazing out to the point of extermination 

 most of the natural herbs, shrubs and even trees, and not conservin'.; his water supply, has killed 

 millions more sheep in a sini^le season by slowstar\'ation than all tlie Eagles in Australasia have 

 done since the first occupation of the country by a more merciful death. At one or two of the 

 nests examined in 1909, I found the remains of the Stump-tailed Lizard (Trndtysdiinis nif^osa), 

 a common reptile in these parts, and also the }ew Lizard ( Aiiipliiholunn hayhatus). Nests 

 are placed either in the Gimis along the creeks, at heights varying from twenty to eighty feet, 

 or out in the open often low down in a Mulj^'a or Leopard-tree. I have also seen the top of a 

 Pine-tree covered with a nest. Eggs are laid Irom June u:itil the early part of September, my 

 earliest record being the loth June and my latest loth September." 



