128 BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 



extensive plains, studded here and there with patches of trees 

 that skirt the Nundawar range, I was suddenly startled by 

 an immense flock of these birds rising before me, and again 

 alighting on the ground at a short distance; finding they 

 would not admit of near approach, I secreted myself, and 

 desired my aboriginal companion Natty to go round and turn 

 the flock towards me : the whole simultaneously rose as before 

 with a loud burring noise, so closely packed, that had they 

 not passed me at a considerable distance, many must have 

 fallen to my shot ; as it was I succeeded in obtaining four, 

 two of which were males. About a week afterwards, while 

 returning from a kangaroo hunt on a distant part of the same 

 plain, we approached a small group of Myalls {Acacia pendula), 

 and Natty suddenly called out, " Look, massa ;" in an instant 

 the air before us seemed literally filled with a dense mass of 

 these birds, which had suddenly risen from under the trees at 

 his exclamation ; w^e had scarcely time to bring Our guns to 

 the shoulder before they were seventy or eighty yards ofi^; 

 our united discharge, however, brought down eight additional 

 specimens, all of which, being merely winged and fluttering 

 about, attracted the attention of our kangaroo dogs, and it 

 was with the greatest difficulty they could be prevented from 

 tearing them to pieces ; in the midst of the scramble, a Kite, 

 with the utmost audacity, came to the attack, and would 

 doubtless have carried off his share, had not the contents of 

 my second barrel stopped his career. This was the last time 

 I met with the Harlequin Bronzewing. I took every oppor- 

 tunity of making inquiries respecting it of the natives of the 

 interior, and of the stockmen at the out stations, both of 

 whom assured me they had never observed it before the 

 present season. If this assertion be correct, and there seems 

 to be no reason for doubting it, whence had this fine bird 

 made its appearance ? May we not reasonably suppose that it 

 had migrated from the central regions of this vast continent, 

 which has yet much in store for future discovery? The great 



