Voi.^^x. 1 Macgillivray, The Region of the Barrier Range. 2y 



{X erophila leucopsis) was feeding a nestful of young. We started 

 back to Sturt's Meadows, disturbing many Dottrels on the 

 gravelly country, both adults and young in all stages. We 

 called at the station and made use of the telephone to com- 

 municate with Broken Hill and Langawirra Station, then drove 

 down to the creek to camp. A pair of Grey Falcons {Falco 

 hypohiicus) had a nest in the first tree we came to below the 

 house ; in a hollow of the same tree were two eggs of the Bare- 

 eyed Cockatoo. The Falcon's nest was on a thin limb at the 

 very top of the tree. Four more Cockatoos' nests, containing 

 eggs, were located in trees within a stone's throw of our camp, 

 and a clutch (three) of Galah's was taken from an adjacent tree. 

 Early on the morning of i6th September M'Lennan climbed 

 to the Falcon's nest; the birds sailed anxiously round, but made 

 no attempt to defend their home. The nest was a large one, 

 lined with wool, and contained four slightly incubated eggs. It 

 was 80 feet from the ground. No sound was uttered by the 

 birds. With M'Lennan I started down the creek afoot, the 

 trap going on to camp at Stone Hut, a boundary rider's hut 16 

 miles further on. Two Cockatoos' nests and eggs were noted, 

 and the burrow of the Black-and-White Swallow was dug out. 

 A bird was found sheltering in it, the day being cold, windy, and 

 cloudy. One very often finds three or four birds in a burrow on 

 such a day. Nests of the Crow {Corvus bennetti) and Kestrel 

 were also observed. A watercourse here runs into the creek, 

 and had been dammed. Around this the herbage was very rank, 

 trefoil growing 2 feet in height, with other plants of equal pro- 

 portions. The wild poppies were the finest we had met with 

 anywhere. On some of the bunches I counted more than 30 

 blooms, individual blooms being 2 inches in diameter ; these 

 and the yellow everlastings, growing up through the other 

 herbage, made the whole flat like a garden, which was brightened 

 by numbers of Tricoloured Chats and enlivened by the song of 

 Rufous Larks. Upon the left bank of the creek a little group 

 of acacia was searched for nests of the White-browed Babbler ; 

 many old ones were found before a bird flew from one which 

 contained eight eggs, three fresh eggs having been laid in a 

 nest already occupied by a full clutch of five old, dried ones. I 

 followed a branch creek, leaving M'Lennan to pursue the main 

 channel, and located many nests of Cockatoos. M'Lennan 

 climbed to a Raven's nest containing young, and found a White- 

 browed Babbler's nest, with two young ones, in an " old man " 

 salt-bush. On a rocky face forming one bank of the creek a 

 colony of F'airy Martins {PetrocJielidon artel) were busily engaged 

 in constructing their retort-shaped nests, most of which were 

 unfinished. An old Black-and-White Swallow's nesting-hole, 

 where the bank had broken away to the nesting cavity, was in 

 possession of a pair of Whitefaces. In another burrow two 



