20 
The Queensland Naturalist. 
VoL. 2 
It is a beautiful, silvery, insistent, brain-piercing cooee. 
From the leafy interior of mulberry trees and our exotic 
ceitis, lie cooees regularly in the early morning and evening. 
The Dollar Bird is probably the foster parent both of this 
Cuckoo and the Channel Bill. The Channel Bill has a voice— 
the worst I know. It’s a vast, prolonged squawk, squawk 
which you can hear a mile away. Very fond of mulberries 
is this bird, and very sly too. The Channel Bill arrived this 
year in September, the Cooee on October 6th, and both 
announced their advent by their call notes long before I saw 
them. 
Twice have I seen the ordinary bronze Cuckoo about 
Gavndah, and one had a caterpillar in his mouth. Larvae 
are destroyed in great numbers by cuckoos. They are great 
insect eaters. This small cuckoo with its barred breast 
and bronze mantle is a very handsome bird. 
Last, but biggest of our orders is that of the Perchers, 
or Passerifo)mes. This order holds three-fifths of the world’s 
avifauna. 
We will ■just glance at the Genera and some ol the species 
I know here. The Welcome Swallow and Tree Martin, but 
not the Fairv Martin, are here all the year round. 
'J'hen we have Jacky Winter (Microcca iaHcinans] but 
no Robins. Fan-tails in the two species, black and white, 
and the white shafted fan-tail. We have also the (ji'inder 
{Siisiini Then we have Graucalus. the cuckoo 
shrikes, in Parisian grey, with black top knots. ILiys call 
them jays and Summer birds, and their nests are hard to 
lind. You can always tell a Graucalus. Watch him or her 
settle. Thev will raise first the one wing and then the other -- 
alwavs. I know no other bird that does this. Once only 
have T seen Lalage - the white-shoulderea caterpillar eater- - 
a rare vision. 
Babblers. Pomatorliinus. Happy Family, two kinds, 
dark head and white head, are here. 1'heir name describes 
their restless vociferous nature. Wood Swallows (Artamidai') , 
are here. Artnmis sordidns, neatest of birds, with a swimming, 
floatiiig movement in the air, and an unmistakeable call note. 
Listen to call notes, you get fascinated by them. You 
hear them and the vision of the unseen bird flashes at once 
into memorv. 1 have heard swans calling high in the 
heavens, C'U dark nights. It gives me ever a pleasureable 
tlirill to hear and intellectuallv grasji what is going on in a 
world unknown to me. 
Crcdlina picaia, Mudlark or Peewee, is here, with his 
shrill Billee-Billee-ee note. 
Then we have the black-backed, fluting crow, also 
Butcher birds. They hunt the silver-eye in my ])ines, and 
