100 Macgillivray, The Region of the Barrier Range. [,st^o"ct. 



to this camping place ; the early morning birds make it one of the 

 most delightful of many such in our wanderings. Long before 

 dawn the Spiny-cheeked Honey-eaters commence their varied, 

 liquid, trilling song. The " Greenies " and Miners next join in 

 from their roosting-places, and the old Raven leaves her nest to 

 fly off to the plain to find a breakfast for her hungry offspring. 

 Next we hear the Striated Diamond-Bird calling from the gums, 

 and the loud notes of the Singing Honey-eaters from the outlying 

 mulgas. A very different note is that of the Bell-Bird, coming 

 from across the creek, where its author has a nest in broken-down 

 cattle-bush or stunted neelia. The creek is soon full of voices, 

 a medley lasting until the daylight dispels the last of the shadows 

 among the trees. The voices cease one by one as the owners 

 busy themselves in satisfying their own cravings or those of their 

 nestlings. 



Soon after the morning meal was over we started down the creek, 

 to flush a Goshawk {A. fasciatus) from her small, flat nest on a 

 dead, leaning acacia, sheltered by a gum-tree — an unusual situation 

 for such a bird to choose. The nest contained two eggs, and we 

 found that it overlooked a bush in the bed of the creek in which 

 a " Greenie " {Ptilotis penicillata) had her nest and eggs. A few 

 yards further on a Spiny-cheeked Honey-eater was putting the 

 finishing touches to her nest in a bunch of mistletoe on a mulga. 

 In a hollow spout, i8 inches in depth, a Cockatoo-Parrakeet had 

 five young birds, as usual of different sizes, incubation com- 

 mencing with the first egg laid. The oldest had yellow down on 

 back and wings and thighs, and the eyes just opening ; the younger 

 ones were blind and naked. A pair of young Magpies, nearly 

 fledged, could be seen over the edge of their nest at the top of a 

 slender gum. A Short-billed Crow's (C. hemietti) nest was 

 occupied by young birds. These nestlings are hatched with 

 greenish-yellow naked skin and eyes closed ; the skin soon 

 darkens, and the eyes open on about the fifth day. In a hollow an 

 Owlet Nightjar {Mgotheles novcB-hollandice) was disturbed from three 

 eggs. Through a chink low down, not 3 feet from the ground, 

 in the bole of a dead gum, a Striated Pardalote had her nest and 

 three eggs, and higher up in the same tree a hollow was occupied 

 by a family of Blue-bonnets (P. xanfhorrhous). Emu tracks were 

 plentiful on the wet sand all along the creek. Feed for these 

 great birds is plentiful about here, consisting mostly of green 

 grass and herbage and the young green tops of the salt-bush. Out 

 from the creek Jim M'Lennan climbed to a nest in a leopard tree ; 

 it contained four fully-fledged Magpies {G. tibicen). The feathers 

 are brownish-black in the young birds, jet black not being assumed 

 until the autumn moult preceding the third spring following 

 hatching. A Little Eagle flew from a nest high up in a gum 

 (two eggs). Nests, containing either eggs or young, of C/mac/ms' 

 picumna, Cacatua gymnopis, C. leadbeateri, Nisaetus morphnoides, 

 Barnardius harnardi, Astur fasciatus, Malnrus assimilis, Haliastiir 

 sphenurus, and other species mentioned above, were discovered. 



