Birds of Nezo South Wales I have caught and kept. 371


of other Softbills. They have a discontented look about them and

are certainly anything but amiable in the aviary. They often build

their nest close to human habitation, and several I have found under

the thatch roof over corn-stacks.


Close to Sydney only the Yellow Robin is met with, generally

called “ Yellow Bob,” a plain grey bird with light sulphur-yellow

breast. His relation up north is larger and of an intense yellow,

a bird one looks at twice. Robins breed easy enough in confinement,

but the rearing of the young is I think still a problem not yet solved.

Rufous Crested and Yellow Thickheads ( Pachycephala) are not only

handsome birds but also exceedingly fine whistlers. Unfortunately

they are still in the experimental stage with me and so far I am

sorry to say I have not been able to keep them longer than a year

at a stretch. To listen to these birds early in the morning gladdens

the heart of any bird-lover. A plain but attractive bird and one I

like to always have round me is the Willy Wagtail ( Motacilloides ) :

head, throat and breast black, eyebrows and under white and fan¬

like tail. They love sitting on the cattles’ backs catching flies,

always wagging their tail and once in a way letting out their melo¬

dious song which sounds like “ sweet pretty creature.” During

moonlight nights they are often a real nuisance, whistling all night

long. They breed every year in my orchard and I have often taken

the young. They thrive in captivity. A close relation of theirs is

the so-called Scissor Grinder or Frog bird : so-called on account of

their peculiar grinding noise, when, as is their habit, they hover like

a Hawk in the air before swooping down to get the insect they have

been searching for. A slender and very graceful bird, much tighter

in feather than the Wagtail, and more handsome. The white on

the breast comes right up to the base of the bill, the rest is a bluish

green-black. Some years ago I sent to England a dozen or so of

three kinds of Wood Swallows, lovely birds all of them. The

White-eye-browed one (Artamus ) light slate grey and maroon breast

and a white brow, the “dusky ” dark grey with black markings on

edge of tail and wing and the “mask” dark grey, half the head

black, mask-like, tail tipped white. All of them birds I would not

care to be without. They are easily kept on bread and milk, and

readily feed and rear their young with this diet. They are very



