May 31, 1912. The Queensland Naturalist. 
221 
TRANSACTIONS. 
NOTES ON THE DRAGOON BIRD. 
(Pitta strepitans — Temm.). 
Also known as the Koisy Pitta, a member of the 
P lTTIDAE, OK SO-CALLED AnT-ThKTJSHES. 
By R. Illidge, 
This beautiful bird, once not uncommon in the dense 
scrubs which formerly adorned the immediate vicinity 
of Brisbane, and probably still existent in the Enoggera 
and Gold Creek scrubs, is the sole represemative of both 
family and genus occurring in South Queensland. There 
are two others — Macklot’s Pitta, ranging from North 
Queensland into New Guinea, and the Rainbow Pitta, 
in Cape York Peninsula, both extremely beautiful birds. 
There is also a small form or sub-species of the Noisy Pitta, 
known as the Alhed Pitta, in the scrubs of North Queens- 
land. 
The Dragoon Bird is solitary in its habits, and it is 
rare to see more than two, and that only during the pair- 
ing season. It lives almost exclusively on the ground, 
sometimes hopping on to logs and low branches, and usually 
keeping well under cover, so that to be able to watch the 
bird it is necessary to sit very quiet in some retired part 
of the scrub which they are known to haunt, and which 
their peculiar call readily betrays. I have also found them 
by the noise they made when breaking snail shells on stones 
and logs, the snails forming a portion of their food, together 
with grubs of various kinds and all sorts of ground insects, 
millipedes and the like, but I certainly never found ants 
to be part of the menu. Of its nidification I cannot speak 
with certainty, not having been able to see the nest in occu- 
pation, but a large domed structure, higher and larger than 
that of the Spine-tailed Orthonyx, was once pointed out 
to me as its nest, and I occasionally came across 
other deserted ones all covered with moss which usually 
decorates the nests of scrub birds. These nests were all 
built on the ground, usually against or upon a bank and 
very difficult to detect. The eggs, of course, I never saw. 
I know of no special reason for calling it Noisy Pitta ; its 
call can be heard in the stillness of the scrub for a long 
distance — so can the calls of most other birds. 
