1 8 BIRDS OF THE DISTRICT OF GEELONG 
November is the usual breeding-time, but Campbell 
mentions a nest found at Heidelberg on July 4tli, 1895. 
Reading his note recalled almost the first birds' nest 
of whose finding I can fix the date. It, too, was at 
Heidelberg, on August i8th, 1885. With some other 
children I had been let loose for the afternoon on the 
pleasant wattle-scented banks of the river. A lady 
found and showed me, in a tuft of rushes, a Land-rail's 
nest of eight eggs, partly covered with mud. The 
birds were not about, the nest having evidently been 
flooded out and deserted, so we took the eggs home, 
only to find in each a dead young one ; and nothing 
remained to us of the great find save the recollection 
of a child's holiday, which still, perhaps, is worth 
something, for after nearly thirty years I find it 
potent to recapture the scent of the wattles and the 
sound of swift broken eddies beneath the trees' green 
feathery overhang. 
Somewhere, I think from the Ballarat district, I 
heard how fowls' eggs used to be taken from the nests 
on a farm, and the empty shells, sucked clean, would 
be found a little distance away. Watching for the 
thief, the farmer saw a Land-rail run out of cover 
close by and into the nest, pierce an egg, devour the 
contents, and so back to hiding. The fowls in this 
case were " laying away " on the ground or in tussocks 
in the neighbourhood of springs, but the Land-rails 
were quite prepared to visit the fowl-house itself 
when no eggs were to be had outside. 
