THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
During the past summer they did not show up at all till 3rd April, when they 
suddenly appeared in thousands at one of the Maxwelton (near Richmond) 
dams. They were everywhere, in the air and on the ground, and as I rode 
among them kept rising to get out of my way Hke a plague of grasshoppers. 
They remained but a couple of days and then left entirely. Their cry, which 
is very noticeable, sounds hke ‘ Whai-ut,’ ‘ Whai-ut ’ uttered loudly and 
boldly.”* 
“ I estimated there were between two and three thousand on an open 
lagoon [North Queensland] on 9th February, 1903, which number came down 
to seven hundred a week later, and by the end of the month was reduced to 
nil. The following spring I only saw five and twenty, and these were dis- 
tributed between the 1 7th and 30th October, with no further record tiU 6th 
March, 1904, when a soHtary bird passed overhead, calling. The big lot I 
watched with my glasses. It was a most interesting scene ; they were 
crowded down on to the water’s edge, the birds on the outskirts being pushed 
into the water. They were all busily engaged preening their feathers, evidently 
having fed, keeping up the while a constant chattering as they pecked at one 
another in their endeavours to find elbow (or rather wing) room.”t 
“ A migrant, that observations show arrives here [North Queensland] 
sometimes as early as 19th September, but as a rule not till October. In 
1904 it did not put in appearance till 10th November, while the springs of 
1901 and 1902 were both blank as far as concerns the Little Whimbrel, for 
I saw nothing of them till the autumns of those two seasons, when the birds 
were making north again. 
“ During the season 1900-1901 I did not see them at all. They leave 
the Richmond district to return to their nesting-grounds, somewhere in north- 
east Asia, in March or April, the 3rd of the latter month being the latest date 
upon which I have seen them here. 
“ There is a difference between the spring and autumn migrations as the 
birds pass here. In the former they are represented by single individuals and 
small parties, but in the autumn they come along in flocks of hundreds, often 
thousands. 
“ I have in my diary two exceptionally late dates upon which I have 
seen Little Whimbrels — 12th April, 1896, and 23rd April, 1905, but as they were 
sofitary birds in each instance, I expect they had been unable on account of 
sickness or wounds, to foUow their mates in the general exodus that took 
place some weeks earlier. Under date 14th March, 1905, I have a note as 
follows : ‘ 10.30 p.m., bright moonlight night, large numbers of these birds 
4b 
* Bemey, Emu, Vol. II., p. 213, 1903. 
t id., ib., Vol. IV., p. 47, 1904. 
182 
