256 FALCONINiE. 



This species frequents chiefly the margins of scrubs, and its food consists largely of insects, 

 also small mammals and reptiles. Both Mr. George Savidge and Mr. Robert Grant have 

 recorded the extraordinary aerial performances of the Crested Hawk, somewhat similar to the 

 evolutions of the well-known domestic Tumbler Pigeon. 



Writing on the 20th October, 1896, Mr. Savidge remarks: — " I witnessed a novel perform- 

 ance of the Crested Hawk (Baza suhcristata ) to-day. During flight one of these birds, by several 

 sharp flaps of its wings, ascended quite perpendicularly in the air for six or eight feet, then 

 reversing itself came rolling down again for about the same distance. This performance it 

 repeated many times, uttering the while a peculiar note unlike that made by any other species 

 of Australian AcciriTRES. At times these birds soar \'ery high; I have also seen them pick 

 something oft' the leaves and branches of trees while on the wing." 



Mr. Robert Grant, Taxidermist of the Australian Museum, has handed me the following 

 notes : — " I found Baza suhcristata in the scrubs of the Upper Hellinger River, near Boat Harbour, 

 while collecting for the Trustees of the Australian Museum, in August, 1892. In the early 

 morning, close to my camp on the river, a large bird used to fly over from the scrub on the 

 opposite side, and in so doing would turn over on its back and strike upwards at some imaginary 

 foe; this it used to do e\-ery fifty or sixty yards, all the wliile uttering a clear whistling cry. I 

 knew it was a bird of prey of some species, so one morning I got into a favourable position 

 and waited for its coming, shot it, and to my surprise, when I picked it up, found it was 

 a Crested Hawk ; this specimen is in the Australian Museum Collection. Previous to this I 

 had shot this species on the tablelands near Herberton, North Queensland. We used to find 

 them on tlie edge of the dense scrubs, but never far in from the forest lands. Among the contents 

 of the stomach of the bird I shot on the Bellinger River were the remains of insects and portion 

 of a bandicoot." 



On the 14th November, 1898, in company with Mr. Clarence Savidge, and " Davy," an 

 Aboriginal, I went to Wombat Creek, about seven miles from Copmanhurst, in the Upper 

 Clarence District, New South Wales, and found a nest of the Crested Hawk built on a thin 

 horizontal branch of a Broad-leaved Apple-tree (An,[;flpJiflm snhveliitiiia j, and held in position by 

 a few nearly upright leafy twigs. It was about sixty feet from the ground, and the tail of the 

 bird, sitting parallel with the branch, could be seen projecting over the side of the nest. We 

 all considered, from the position, that it was a nest of Podaixiis stvigoidcs. The bird remained 

 sitting while " ]")avy " chopped steps in the tree, and until he got on a limb a few yards above 

 the nest, when it sat up in the nest and erecting its crest before flying off, revealed a young one 

 just hatched, clothed in pure white down, with unopened eyes, and a chipped egg, which the 

 Aboriginal scooped with a net. While the nest was being robbed the female made frequent 

 dashes at the blackfellow. This nest, a slightly cupped structure, was formed of thin sticks and 

 twigs, and lined on the bottom with Eucalyptus leaves ; it measured externally fifteen inches in 

 length by ten inches in breadth and five inches in depth. 



From the Bloomfield River District, North-eastern Queensland, Mr. Frank Hislop writes 

 me : — " The Crested Hawk is generally seen round about the hills, and in the forests and scrub. 

 They usually build in a high tree on the edge of the scrub." 



With a set of three eggs taken at Coomooboolaroo, Duaringa, Queensland, on the 22nd 

 October, 1892, Mr. H. G. Barnard sent me the following notes: — " Baza suhcristata builds about 

 here in large bunches of mistletoe, which grow on a species of Eucalyptus locally known as 

 " Gum-topped Box," and it was in one of these bunches that I found the nest from which I took 

 the set of eggs I send you. The nest is composed entirely of small twigs, which are 

 allowed to wither before the eggs, three or four in number for a sitting, are deposited. The 

 nests of this species are usually about fifty feet from the ground, and I have never known of 

 them being laid in twice, a new nest being constructed for each brood ; nor have 1 known the 



