SOME USEFUL AUSTRALIAN BIRDS. 25 



get some remnants of a lunch on the grass. The little bird flew over him 

 chattering all the time, and finally drove him back into the shelter of the 

 bushes. 



The Victorian Naturalist has several records of the Pallid Cuckoo placing 

 her egg in the nest of this bird, and using her as a foster-mother. Dr. 

 Bennett, in his " Gatherings of a Naturalist in Australasia " (p. 208), gives a 

 wood-cut showing a Fantailed Flycatcher feeding a young Bronze Cuckoo. 

 He says : " It was ludicrous to observe the large and apparently well-fed 

 bird filling up with its corpulent body the entire nest, receiving daily the 

 sustenance intended for several young flycatchers ; and we could imagine 

 underneath the nest the skeletons of the former tenants sacrificed to the 

 rearing of this parasitical cuckoo." 



Th3 Magpie-lark (Grallina picata Latham). 



Gould's Handbook, vol. I, page 118, No. 12S ; Leach's Bird Book, p. 148, No. 314. 



There is not a more dainty or a more fearless grass-hunting bird than the 

 Magpie-lark. It is cosmopolitan in its range. All over Australia, wherever 

 fresh water is found and there is timber, you will hear the plaintive calf of 

 the Pied Grallina or Magpie-lark a bird note that has led to its gaining also 

 the name of Pee-weet, which we hope, because of its application to a 

 well-known European sea-shore bird, will be dropped for the more original 

 name. 



These birds are not uncommonly seen in our suburban gardens hunting 

 over the lawns for grass insects, and if it were not for that curse of bird 

 life, the domestic cat, they would soon increase in numbers. The flight 

 of the Magpie-lark is undulating, and as she settles down on roof or grass 

 she sends forth her clear note "pee-weet," repeated several times. Coming to 

 .a water-hole to drink or hunt for insects she has a dainty mincing strut 

 which is very characteristic. At Warrah Experimental Station I was 

 interested in watching a Magpie-lark that spends all its spare time resting 

 on a spout and pecking at the office window. The manager said that 

 this had been going on for three years ; and that, viewed from the 

 outside, the bird could see its reflection in the sheet of glass evidently the 

 .attraction. 



There seems to be no valid reason why some birds, delicate and graceful, 

 should adopt the habit of plasterers, and make solid large -nests of mud, such 

 AS those of the swallows, martins, Black-magpies, and our Magpie-lark. The 

 nest is generally built on a stout stem of a gum-tree adjacent to the water, 

 well up from the ground and out of reach of enemies ; but she often builds 

 some distance away from water, and I once saw a nest on an orna- 

 mental gum-tree on the main street of Moree, in quite an exposed position. 

 The nest is shaped like a round basin ; it has a solid base and well-built sides, 

 and is lined inside with grass and feathers on which are laid three, four, 

 or sometimes five pyriform pearly-white eggs marked with a mottled 



