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Mr. G. A. Heumann,



merely a scrape in the ground like a Demoiselle Crane’s, and no

attempt made to build a nest like the Crowned Crane’s do with

reeds, etc. A Dutchman told me that these birds often spent the

day with the herds of game out in the open, and were very wary.

The eggs, he said, were brown coloured with spots of a darker brown

at the big end. The bird tames easily, and once at home does not

appear to have any desire to leave, even in its native country, as a

storekeeper had one which the natives brought in, and it used to

spend its day walking about and picking up stray Mealie or Millet

seeds. When I first saw it the bird was moulting and unable to

as it had cast its flight feathers in both wings.



BIRDS OF N.S. WALES I HAVE


CAUGHT AND KEPT.


“ SCRUB-BIRDS.”


By G. A. Heumann.


For years it had been my wish to see some of our Scrub-birds

in my aviaries, such as Regent, Rifle, Cat, Satin and other Bower-

birds, Mountain-thrushes, Pittas (Dragoons), and many other

feathered inhabitants of the Australian bush, but for years it

remained but a wish. There was no chance of “picking” these

birds up in any of the bird shops either here or in Melbourne, and

how they had found their way, as I knew they had, into the aviaries

of English fanciers I never learned. Talking the matter over with a

friend, also an enthusiastic bird-lover, we decided that the only way

to get these birds would be to go and catch them ourselves.

Spending the winter generally in a more congenial situation than

Sydney, we put in, for several years running, the coldest months in

various parts of the northern rivers of New South Wales. On the

Tweed river we were fortunate in possessing the friendship of the

oldest resident there, a retired Police Magistrate, who came to those

parts at a time when the Nulla-Nulla and the Boomerang still

played a conspicuous part in the tribal warfares of the natives.

Then the thick scrub still abounded with all kinds of native birds

and animals. Alas and alack! the sight of a native now is as



