180 THE VICTORIAN NATURALIST. 



tember, generally disappearing during the latter month, although 

 in a favourable season they are in evidence longer, as they were 

 this, for instance. They are largely eaten by Ibis, Crows, &c. 

 Grasshoppers lay their eggs about December ; they make small 

 round holes, larger at the bottom than near the surface, and from 

 half to three-quarters of an inch deep, and when laying the female 

 inserts her abdomen into the hole up to the base of the wings, 

 and several grasshoppers gather round her and seem to hold her 

 down while she is laying. The eggs are elongated, and dirty 

 white in colour, and number from five to twelve. They are laid 

 in an upright position, forming a bunch, and adhering loosely one 

 to the other. The young, when hatched, come out of the top end 

 of the egg, and work their way up through the ground to the 

 surface. The female grasshopper always seems to choose hard, 

 bare patches of ground in which to make her burrows, and it 

 seems a wonder how she can do it at all when the ground is often 

 so dry and hard. The young generally hatch early in October, in 

 countless numbers ; they grow quickly, and can fly towards the 

 end of November, and I was glad to notice that the Rose-breasted 

 Cockatoos, or Galahs, Cacatua roseicapilla, who are generally 

 regarded as the farmers' enemy, have some good points in their 

 favour, as they dig up the grasshoppers' eggs with their beaks and 

 devour large quantities of them. The birds seem to know in- 

 stinctively where the eggs are, and it would be interesting to 

 know how they first acquired the habit of searching for them 

 — possibly by first having found the eggs when they pulled up 

 the roots of several plants on which they feed, for, as is well 

 known, these birds feed almost exclusively on the ground ; it is 

 probable that the Long-billed Cockatoo, or Corella, Licrtietis 

 nasica, and the White Cockatoo, Cacatua galerita, do the same 

 thing. 



The most interesting sight seen was a colony of the Straw-necked 

 Ibis, Carphibis spinicollis, nesting in a swamp of about 600 

 acres, which was covered with Lignum (Muehlenbeckia cunning- 

 hamii) bushes from six to ten feet high, and in which the water was 

 from two to three feet deep. The birds occupied about 400 

 acres, and it was an interesting sight watching the various com- 

 panies continually leaving and returning ; some flew high, others 

 again low, and each flock numbered from three to about forty 

 birds. As the swamp was approached, a curious sound, some- 

 thing like breaking surf on the shore, was heard, caused by the 

 immense numbers of birds flying about and emitting their hoarse 

 cry j but comparatively few birds were seen flying above the 

 Lignum, and one could not tell that such a vast host of birds were 

 nesting there. And after having been all through the swamp and 

 carefully noted the numbers on a small area, both Dr. C. Ryan 

 and myself, as well as the manager of the station on which the 



