8o HowK ATSiD TRUGKhLXS, Rarer Birds of the Mallee. [,sf'"oct 



darkness came everything was in order. Just before dusk a 

 Striated Grass-Wren was heard calHng from the porcupine at 

 the rear of the camp. 



It wa^ a fine, clear morning on 24th September, after a heavy 

 frost. Crested Bell-Birds and Honey-eaters were calling all 

 around us, and a Bronze-winged Pigeon was feeding close to the 

 tent. Mr. Kenyon, of the State Rivers and Water Supply Depart- 

 ment, had arrived during the night, and, hearing the bullock 

 bells in the distance and finding ornithologists in camp, he named 

 the locality Bell-Bird Bore. Before breakfast we took a stroll 

 to the top of the big sand-hill to look at the country to the north. 

 As far as the eye could reach— and in this beautiful clear air one 

 can see over many miles — were sand-hills, and in the immediate 

 vicinity porcupine grass. Bird-life was abundant in the 

 gullies, but the Purple-backed Wren-Warblers and Yellow-rumped 

 Pardalotes kept to the ridges. Two nests of the latter, each con- 

 taining full clutches of eggs, were dug out. On the plain we saw 

 a Black-eared Cuckoo, Mesocalius osculans {Owenavis osculans 

 osculans). After breakfast we again ascended this ridge, dipped 

 into a basin, doubled back across the flat and up another narrow 

 gully, securing several specimens. Returning to camp, we visited 

 the large tree on the plain ; it was about 35 feet in height, the 

 tallest mallee seen on the trip. A Nankeen Kestrel, Cerchneis 

 cenchroides {C. c. cenchroides), had taken possession of a hollow, 

 which contained one egg. After dinner we again went north, 

 and spent the afternoon in the porcupine grass in a vain attempt 

 to secure Striated Grass- Wrens. A nest of the Purple-backed 

 Wren-Warbler was found in the dead and open centre of a huge 

 clump of porcupine grass ; the male, resplendent in purple and 

 blue, the female, as well as immature iDirds, were seen at the 

 nest. A nest of the Yellow-plumed Honey-eater, Ptilotis ornata 

 {Lichenostomus 0. tailemi), was found, suspended in the topmost 

 branches of a small mallee ; it contained two fresh salmon-tinted 

 eggs. Close by, a nest of the Short-billed Tree-Tit contained 

 young. Here, again, we met with the Mallee Emu-Wren, but the 

 birds kept close to the porcupine grass. On all these sand-ridges 

 a parasitic creeper (mallee vine) was growing in profusion, and 

 in this the Pachycephalce were fairly plentiful. A male bird was 

 secured, and the female was lured off the nest by whistling, but 

 could not afterwards be found. In our many circlings made to 

 find the nest we became uncertain of direction. After making a 

 few futile attempts to find the biggest range (they all looked large 

 just then), we were proceeding in the wrong direction, when the 

 bullock bells were heard directly in our rear, and a long way off. 

 At night we anathematized the bells, but just then they made 

 sweet music. On the return to camp we kept to the top of the 

 sand-ridges. We flushed a small bird from a nest (containing 

 three fresh eggs) at the foot of a melaleuca. After a long wait, 

 a female Wren -Warbler cautiously returned to the tree, and 

 presently was followed by a male Purple-backed Wren-Warbler 



