BLACK-FRONTED DOTTEREL 85 
lakes which this bird prefers, are not characteristic 
features of the Geelong district, so that it is rather 
rarer here than in most parts of the State. Once I 
saw a pair on the main road to the You Yangs, near 
some small lakes on Lara ; while close to North Geelong 
Station, on the banks of the Barwon, at various points 
between Barwon Bridge and the Breakwater, at the 
" Gut " at the entrance of Lake Connewarre, and at 
Airey's Inlet I have seen birds from time to time. 
My attention has usually been drawn to the presence 
of the birds by their note, which, though not loud, is 
high-pitched and cannot be forgotten when one has 
once heard it. I only regret that I have no means 
of conveying to my readers the countless varying 
whistles, calls, and songs of our native birds ; attempts 
to do so in imitative language are usually worse than 
futile in that they are so easily misleading. Let me 
just say that every one of our two hundred odd 
species (except such as utter no sound at all) has 
its own series of separate and distinct notes, none of 
which is exactly like the note of any other species ; 
that a young ornithologist can, given a decent ear 
for tone, in a year or two, pick up the notes of at 
least 50 per cent, of our birds ; that I believe it 
would be humanly possible to learn them all ; and 
that the ear is (in most cases) a much better guide 
than even the eye in helping us find the particular 
bird of which we may be in search. 
No doubt the Black-fronted Dotterel breeds where- 
ever it is found, seeing that it has no migratory 
