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NOTES FROM POINT CLOATES, N.W. AUSTRALIA. 



By Thomas Carter. 



At Mauds Landing, thirty-five miles south of here, on May 1st, 

 1900, the extensive salt-marsh, which is usually a dreary lifeless 

 plain, with little growing on it but numerous samphire-bushes 

 about eighteen inches in height, was covered with water, owing 

 to the excessive rainfall this year — a West Australian " lake," 

 about thi'ee miles in length, half a mile wide, and in places three 

 or four feet deep. Great numbers of White-headed Stilts {Hiniaii- 

 topus leucocephalus) were breeding ; the nests, which were mostly 

 on the small patches of higher ground which formed islands, 

 were merely a slight depression lined with a few samphire- 

 twigs or roots. A few nests were built in the tops of the low 

 bushes just above the surface of the water ; these nests, naturally, 

 were more compactly built. The eggs, four in a clutch, varied 

 considerably in colour, some of them having the ground colour 

 deep golden yellow, others quite green, but all with numerous 

 and large black blotches. Fresh eggs were to be found there 

 until Sept. 2nd, the birds having an uneasy time, as some natives 

 visited the spot, and kept robbing the nests. On that date many 

 young were fledged, and I also found young in down, which were 

 difficult to detect, as they squatted flat and kept motionless. 

 One of the islands proved a particularly rich field. It was only 

 about fifty yards long and ten wide, but upon it were about twenty 

 Stilts' nests, four of Red-necked Avocets (Recurvirostra novce- 

 hollandicB), two nests of the rare Gull-billed Tern (Gelochelidou 

 anglica), one of the Red-kneed Dotterel {Erythrogonys cinctus), 

 and newly-hatched young of the Red-capped Dotterel (^gialitis 

 ruficapilla) , There was one egg in each of the Gull-billed 

 Terns' nests, though they were hardly worthy of the name of 

 nest, the egg being laid in a slight hollow where the surrounding 

 ground was perfectly bare. In shape they were a long oval, 

 pointed at the small end, of a stone-grey colour, with numerous 



