KUNGL. SV. VET. AKADEMIENS HANDLINGAR. BAND 52. N:O (7. 11 
Ornithotopographical relations. 
Thus the landscape here had two different types 
1” the low savanna-bush with a strong character of half-desert, 
2” the sterile plateau-land with a decided character of desert. 
The savanna-landscape (Plate 5, fig. 1). 
This type of nature, which we met during our journey from Derby, was of 
rather a stunted nature. HFEucalyptus-vegetation, however, was predominant all 
the way to the sandstone mountains. So the savanna type was seen everywhere. 
The trees were very scattered, only the Jurgarry-creek was marked in the landscape 
by a thicker and in some places even abundant sinuous green ribbon, where the 
height of the trees not seldom amounted to about ten meters. Vegetation below 
was totally lacking. Here and there, however, I found a rather thick bushy brush- 
wood which was a favourite haunt especially for the Ploceidce-forms. On the sandy 
hills, which here and there rose from the level plain was seen a vegetation of 
small scattered brushy groups, which as to their growth slightly recalled the stalk- 
vegetation on our moors. In this boundary-zone of the plateau-land the Spinifex- 
vegetation appeared very abundantly, firming meterhigh swelling knolls, between 
which the sand lay naked (Plate 5, fig. 2). 
One of the characteristics of that region was further the almost vegetationless 
sandy area, which to a larger or smaller extent interrupted the Spinifex-vegetation. 
It was here that the short-lived shallow pools of water were formed during the rainy 
season. When the water had evaporated, a rather scabrous grass sprouted here, and 
even a few flowers, a very rare thing in this sunbaked, torrid savanna wood. Where 
at all extensive areas of this description were seen, they often presented in some 
places also a last years growth of scorched grass, almost recalling the steppe. Finally 
I must here mention also the scattered outposts of the desert mountains. They 
consisted of small ruin-like sandstone rocks, witnesses of erosion, showing that the 
plateau-land once extended farther towards the north. These, rising about twenty 
meters over the savanna, presented in the grotto-like caverns in their sheer walls 
breeding-places for small colonies of Petrochelidon mnigricans neglecta and Artamus 
minor. Besides there were found such raptores as Hieracidea occidentalis and Aquilince- 
species. Later on I met with the mountain-dove Lophophaps ferruginea. 
From an ornithological point of view we, consequently, have to observe those 
two different regions, which are indicated by the Eucalyptus-formation and the sand- 
stone mountains. The supply of water was of course the final necessary condition 
for bird-life. The Jurgarry creek formed the migratory road, along which the water- 
birds went to those regions after the first rains. 
