December 1948 The Queensland. Naturalist 
113 
vol. 32, pp. 287, etc., 1933). In Australia there is a good 
deal of nomadic movement among certain Australian 
birds such as our brush-tongued parrots, which is depen- 
dant on the occurrence of food supplies in different areas 
and is not regarded as a migration. Certain seabirds, 
including gulls, terns and penguins, follow in this way 
travelling shoals of fish, which sometimes disappear as 
they come north, often leaving the following birds in dire 
straits as a result. Among other birds that move north 
each autumn either to North Queensland or to New 
Guinea and the Malay Archipelago are rock and fruit 
pigeons, rollers or dollar birds, some kingfishers, rain- 
bow birds, swifts, all cuckoos except the pheasant coucai, 
swallows, flycatchers, some robins, fantails, trillers 
(Lalage), reed warblers, wood-swallows and some honey- 
eaters. The movement of some of these birds is most 
regular and the arrival and departure of such birds as 
the koel cuckoo can be named almost to a day in the 
middle of September for arrival m the Brisbane area and 
the middle of March for the return north. Not all mem- 
bers of these migrating families of birds move off in the 
general movement, because even as far south as Port 
Phillip representatives of our different waders can be 
found right through the year. Why this should happen, 
or why some of them should move east and west and not 
make the usual north and south movement, or why they 
should move at all or so far, still remains a mystery des- 
pite the long and careful observation made by many 
observers here and abroad. Various reasons are 
advanced. The disappearance of suitable food in many 
climes as the winter of that region advances can be 
readily accepted in the case of most birds. But whilst 
this fact can he admitted, how are we to account for the 
young birds within a year of the nest knowing of this 
need to move far in order to have food which will disap- 
pear from the place of its nativity and. not only that, 
have the knowledge of how far to go and in which 
direet’on to arrive at its destination Qualified observers 
sav that young birds among migrants invariably move 
off first and without any seniors as guides, and that these 
seniors usually travel later. Let ns take the ease of the 
American golden plover which nests in the short summer 
of Northern Canada along the Arctic shores of that 
region. After nesting, the old and young journey south 
