TUB NORFOLK PLOVER. 113 



parts of this country, the Australian heath does not 

 appear to be at all the same as the bonny brown heather 

 of Scotland. There is a kind of disease peculiar to the 

 poultry out here, which sometimes sweeps off thou- 

 sands ; and I recollect one summer finding great quanti- 

 ties of the little green paroquets lying dead in the forests, 

 which had died from some epidemic. 



The Golden Plover here is precisely the golden plover 

 of Europe, but much smaller. It was rare in our dis- 

 trict, and I never saw them in flocks, but generally in 

 small wisps of five or six. They did not breed with us, 

 but came only at uncertain periods. 



The large Norfolk Plover, or Stone Curlew, was not at 

 all rare with us at certain seasons, in small flocks, but 

 they did not breed with us. They frequented the small 

 belts of timber on the edges of the plains, and I never 

 saw them in the open. They appeared exactly to resemble 

 the British bird. They seemed to be very nocturnal in 

 their habits, and the long melancholy whistle of the stone 

 curlew in the Australian forest at night, often strikes a 

 chill in the heart of the benighted traveller; for an imita- 

 tion of the call of this bird is a signal-whistle from the 

 bushranger here to his mates at night. 



I know no country where a good birdcatcher could do 

 better than in this, and if I had a friend in the line, I 

 would advise him to pack up his traps and be off to Mel- 

 bourne at once. Quail, plover, and snipe might always 

 be caught for the market, during the season, by any one 

 who understood the business. All the ground paroquets 



