Birds of Ncio South Wales I have caught and kept. 375


■suppose one expects too much at times of scientists or theorists, as

it were ; but for their own sakes it would be as well for them to

acknowledge at times when in a fog “I don’t know myself.”


Other birds I have kept are the twelve Apostles, so-called on

account of generally flying, jumping, and running along the ground

in a dozen or so. They are a dull, brown-black bird and are very

plentiful out west. When picnicing' they will come quite close to

eat the crumbs. In the aviary they are butchers. The same applies

to the Grey-crowned Babbler ( Pomatorhinus) or Happy Family.

Rather a pretty bird and very companionable to the traveller. They

will follow you through the lonely Bush for a long time, jumping

from scrub to scrub and log to log chattering away to themselves.

They are for ever building nests and it is hard to find the one

they mean for raising a family in.


The Black-faced Cuckoo-Shrike is a bird I like to have with

me ; rather large, but gentle and tame, silver grey with forehead,

face and throat black. Soldier-birds are also very pretty but trouble¬

some in the aviary. Being short of rations one day out in the Bush

we tried these Soldier-birds as a dish, but the sweetness of their

flesh—the flavour of bad honey—saved them at once from further

slaughter. Recently I sent a pair of Mistletoe birds to the Zoo. in

London. Exquisite little fellows, steel blue with dark scarlet breast,

the hen grey. They fly very high, feeding on mistletoe berries ;

their swallowing capacity is enormous, since they can gulp down a

berry almost the size of a briar berry. Living so high up and

drinking the nectar of the flowers on the high trees, it is but rarely

one can catch them. If one succeeds they are worth their weight

in gold.


Out in the open and allowed the run on my lawns I have

the Stone Plover or Curlew, the Spurwing and Black-breasted

Plovers, which all breed with me very freely year by year. Then

there is the White-backed and Black Magpie and the Kagus,

which of course are not Australian; also Johnny, the Laughing

Jackass and Billy the Kestrel, a great friend of my pair of Black

and White Butcher Birds, which sleep with him on his perch at

night. A strange friendship! The Curlews were once friends of

Johnny the Jackass, but since he once inspected their nest too



