26 Macgillivray, The Region of the Barrier Range. r,sf''j"iy 



plains ; the rabbits and drought on an overstocked run brought 

 about this result, and this applies to every part of the district. 



After replenishing our water-bag with rain water, we took the 

 wrong track, going off at an angle to the right through hilly 

 country, which became stony and gravelly and more open as we 

 got away from the creek. The wild-flowers won our admiration. 

 Many peas grew alongside the track ; yellow, violet, and 

 brownish-yellow flowers were gathered. Some areas were 

 golden and sweet-scented with the yellow everlasting ; other 

 parts looked as though covered with a mantle of snow, so thickly 

 did a brilliantly white everlasting bloom. Where a watercourse 

 ran to the creek was a flat on which the old man salt-bush grew. 

 We noted many Tricoloured and Orange-fronted Chats and 

 Purple-backed Wrens {Malurus assimilis). On the ironstone 

 gravel a pair of Dottrels {Peltohyas australis) used all their 

 wiles to lead us away from three chicks in hiding among the 

 stones and scant herbage. Fourteen miles from the station we 

 came to an old coach change, consisting of two fine dams and an 

 old shed. The horses were watered and the billy was boiling 

 when the coach came rattling along. After lunch M'Lennan 

 and I went off to inspect a black oak {Casuarinci) creek which 

 runs parallel with the road and half a mile from it. A Babbler's 

 (P. superciliosus) nest with one young bird was our first find. 

 Then came a Bell-Bird's {Oreoica cristatd) nest with three 

 chipping eggs, and many old nests of Babblers and of a Wood- 

 Swallow [Artavius nielmiops) were noted. Tricoloured Chats and 

 Singing and Spiny-cheeked Honey-eaters were numerous ; for 

 the vegetation was good, and there was an abundance of water 

 in gravelly-bedded holes all along the creek. In a small gum 

 a hollow contained a family of "Blue-Bonnets" {PsepJiotus 

 xanthofrJioiis) clamouring for food. Several Spotted Harriers 

 were searching the adjoining plain, and a pair of Grey Falcons 

 had taken possession of an old Wedge-tailed Eagle's nest in a 

 leopard tree {Flindersia maculosa), but had not yet laid. The 

 day was windy, as are so many days here, and numbers of 

 Masked and Black-faced Wood-Swallows and Tricoloured Chats 

 were feeding on the insects sheltering on the lee side of 

 every bush and shrub. In a stunted gum a Galah {Cacatua 

 roseicapilla) had five eggs in an advanced stage of incubation. 

 Four eggs I regard as a full clutch, though many nests only 

 contain three. We tramped back to camp through the salt- 

 bush, noting many old camp fire-places of the blacks by the way, 

 with grinding stones and flint chippings scattered about, We 

 flushed a Brown Song-Lark {CindorJiampJms cniralis) from her 

 nest in a depression scraped out beside a salt-bush. The nest 

 was composed of rootlets of fine grasses, the o.g'g cavity measur- 

 ing 3 inches in diameter by 2 inches in depth. There were 

 three eggs. In the old shed at the coach stage a Whiteface 



