20' Macgillivray, The Region of the Barrier Range. [,^f "juiy 



to such exercise, compelled us to return to camp by a 

 rapid march across country, delayed only by a search for 

 aboriginal stone relics on a sand-bank which has evidently 

 been a favourite camping-place of old time. After tea we 

 were soon abed and asleep. The morning broke fine and 

 clear ; breakfast was soon over, and a start made to investigate 

 the creek back towards the station. A pair of Little Eagles 

 {Nisattus iiiorpJuioides) had a nest ready for occupation in a tree 

 near our camp. A Mallee Parrakeet's hollow contained two 

 young birds in down. Young birds were seen in a Raven's 

 nest. A "Greenie's" pendulous nest, just completed among 

 the leaves of a gum, was seen, not far from a Yellow- 

 throated Miner's {Mysantha flavigiila) nest containing three 

 eggs. Another Little Eagle was flushed, and flapped 

 slowly away from a nest high up, as usual, to which she 

 had evidently been putting the finishing touches. Two magni- 

 ficent Black Falcons {Falco siibniger) were disturbed from 

 their roosting-place in a eucalypt, and glided away through the 

 trees. On the wing these birds appear to be the largest of our 

 Falcons. More Miners' nests, and a Grallina {Grallina picata) 

 sitting on its mud nest, led us on to a Goshawk's {Astiir 

 fasciatus) small platform-like structure, to which the bird 

 returned when M'Lennan was half-way up to it. She soon 

 quitted when she caught sight of the intruder. The nest was 

 almost finished. A pair of Allied Kites {Milvus affinis) were 

 soaring over the tree-tops, their dark bodies and swallow tails 

 silhouetted against the clear sky, and their keen eyes watching 

 every movement of the humans below. A Whistling Eagle 

 {Haliastur sphenunis) was busy renewing an old home; these, 

 nests are, as a rule, securely built on a substantial limb at a. 

 good height from the ground, and are re-lined with green leaves 

 year after year. In a tree near by a Little Eagle had nearly 

 finished a nest. Unlike the Whistling Eagle, this species has 

 little chance of re-occupying an old nest, as the site usually 

 chosen — a slender limb at the top of a tree — does not tend to 

 its survival from year to year in a region where winds are high 

 and frequent. A Galah's nesting hollow, containing three hard- 

 set eggs, was our turning point. M'Lennan, cutting across a 

 salt-bush flat, on the opposite side to the rest of party, found, in 

 a blue-bush, a nest of the White-winged Wren {Malunis leucop- 

 terus) built almost wholly of sheep's wool and containing four 

 eggs. In other bushes were two more nests, nearly completed. 

 One was composed of sheep's wool, the other of dry grass and 

 wool, lined with woolly seeding plants and rabbit fur. All the 

 nests were placed at the tops of bushes in fairly conspicuous 

 positions. M'Lennan also found a Crested Pigeon's {OcypJiaps 

 lophotes) nest with two eggs in an outlying acacia. 



After a flying visit to the Buzzard's nest, and an early lunch, 



