NOTES AND QUERIES. 29 



[The notes referred to appeared in ' The Zoologist' for September (p. 352). 

 — Ed.] The first Emu's eggs were brought in by natives on May 25th. 

 These birds retire to the neighbourhood of the sea to breed, making their 

 nests close to the salt marshes, which extend for some miles in breadth 

 along the coast. The first egg laid is covered by twigs ; as more eggs are 

 laid more twigs are added and placed under the eggs. I was on the coast 

 some weeks, and uoticed the White-tailed Sea Eagle and Black Oyster- 

 catcher commonly. The Wedge-tailed Eagle, Aquila audax, breeds near 

 the coast, being least disturbed there. I noted a nest with two eggs on 

 June 2nd, built on the top of a low bush. There being no large trees or 

 crags here, the Eagle's eyrie is an extremely unromautic affair. One nest 

 I saw thirty feet from the ground, formed of about a cartload of sticks. It 

 was in the fork of a gum tree. All others I have seen have only been from 

 six to twenty feet from the ground in bushes or low trees. Sometimes 

 an extremely slight nest is constructed. To show the number of these 

 magnificent birds, I may mention that fifteen were poisoned in one day 

 upon a lamb. I myself had five down in about half an hour from another 

 poisoned carcase. It was a fine sight to see these birds fighting over the 

 meat. I picked one up afterwards, and after standing on his back some 

 minutes concluded he was dead, and shouldered him to my camp, as 

 I wished to skin it. On the road it suddenly revived and attacked my rear 

 so savagely, that I was glad to drop the bird and kill it outright before 

 going farther. Last month I took a trip up the Minilya river, sixty 

 miles north from this. Little Quails were in thousands, and I got a 

 great number of eggs. Some young had hatched. The settlers there 

 were very anxious for me to see some beautiful " Crested Partridges," 

 which they said were common, but I was not lucky enough to find 

 any. The Red-tailed Cockatoo, C. naso, occurs there, and the Black 

 Swan breeds there in good seasons ; both young and eggs have often been 

 secured : I imagine this is a very long way north to breed. Large flocks 

 of what the settlers term " Nichol Bay Pigeons" were frequently seen, but 

 I was unable to ideutify them. I cut out a nest of the Nankeen Kestrel, 

 S. cenchroides, containing five eggs, from a hollow gum branch. In a bush 

 below was a large snake, which we killed. I find a considerable difference 

 in the nesting here from at home ; one has to look out for snakes, poisonous 

 caterpillars, &c, and a colony of serpent-ants in possession of a tree are very 

 awkward customers to go through. The grub of a small moth was eating 

 off a lot of vegetation, and a swarm of Grasshopper- birds or " Svvarmers," 

 Olareola grallaria, feeding on the grubs. I secured any number of their 

 eggs. Returning here I find birds much later in breeding. I have found 

 at least thirty nests of the Western Brown Hawk, H. occidentalis, by far 

 the commonest bird of prey, and an extremely noisy one. The eggs are 

 two or three in number, much like Peregrines. The bird either makes a 



