3386 Birds. 



were running about the rocks — with equal facility up and down per- 

 pendicular and overhanging surfaces — betaking themselves to the fis- 

 sures and recesses as soon as I approached : in fact even by looking 

 over a rock all the crabs below took to flight. 



On the flat summits of the sandstone cliffs are numerous specimens 

 of rude carving of the aborigines representing sharks, porpoises, kan- 

 garoos, &c. Descending by a narrow path, I fished from the rocks 

 with considerable success, having caught several species of Serranus, 

 Julis, &c. In a small wood not far off I shot a " coachman" {Pso- 

 phodes crepitans), and many of Anthochaera mellivora — the latter 

 feeding on the insects in the Banksia flowers. Some Eucalypti in 

 blossom were frequented by numbers of parrakeets — Trichoglossus 

 Swainsonii and T. concinnus — besides many fine beetles. I dined 

 here in a shady hollow, to the accompaniment of music — such as it 

 was — to the heart's content : for the trunks and branches of the trees 

 around harboured numbers of " locusts," as the colonists call them. 

 In like manner they have anglicized Angophora by " apple-tree," Ca- 

 suarina by " she-oak," Banksia by " honey-suckle," Exocarpus by 

 " cherry," &c. ; and they are not content with calling the large flat 

 spiders of the genus Linyphia — common under bark — by the errone- 

 ous name " tarantula," but some have further corrupted the word to 

 " triantalope." But, to return to the locusts, they are large Cicadidse, 

 of which the commonest is the green Cyclochila Australasian, and next 

 to that several species of Fidicina, and the fine Thopha saccata. 



John Macgillivray. 



January, 1852. 



On the Song of Birds. — The song of birds seems to be guided by different motives ; 

 some birds sing only at the time of pairing and nestling, others at broken periods 

 nearly all the year round. I have watched them very closely lately, and find that the 

 weather has a good deal to do with it. The winter of 1850-51 was remarkably mild: 

 in November, 1850, the temperature for the first fourteen days ranged from 48 to 58, 

 with fine, calm, clear weather; in the middle of that month the skylarks were soaring 

 as they do in spring, and singing quite out. I noticed a sparrow carrying feathers 

 under the eaves of a dwelling-house at the same period. In the beginning of August, 

 1851, the thrushes in ray neighbourhood ceased singing; from that time until the 20th 

 of October — a splendid autumnal day — I heard no thrush sing ; but on that day four or 

 live commenced their song for a day. I heard no more until the 8th of December, when 

 " The mavis thrush with wild delight, 

 Upon the orchard's dripping tree, 

 Mutters, to see the day so bright, 

 Fragments of young hope's poesy.'' 



