THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
grass, where it would sit until flushed again. The eggs are beautifully and 
curiously marked with large irregular blotches of dark blackish-brown on 
a light brown ground-colour, there being lines of dark colour joining the 
various blotches. The birds I have seen about at the Reedbeds on various 
occasions, and generally about Christmas-time or what is known as our 
summer.” 
“ That this species occasionally visits the district near Rockingham Bay 
[Queensland] is proved by some fine specimens having been shot and skinned 
by Inspector Johnstone. These were procured a short time prior to my 
visit, and were stfll in his possession at the time of my sojourn under his 
hospitable roof. 
“ The Painted Snipe is by no means a co mm on bird ; and although 
during an occasional very wet season this species may be obtained in tolerable 
numbers, yet its visits are very uncertain and few and far between. In New 
South Wales I have obtained specimens from the Clarence River and Lake 
George ; but nowhere have I ever found it plentiful.”* 
“ On 26th July, 1906, I flushed a single bird in the vicinity of a bulrush 
swamp [Richmond, North Queensland] and following it, flushed it a second 
time to make sure of its identification ; never saw it out here before.”t 
Mr. J. P. Rogers found this bird exceedingly rare in the North-west of 
Australia. 
“ On 14th August a fine bird of this species was shot ... as it was 
wading in the shallow water of the creek at the camel depot. It proved 
to be a female, well developed, and would soon have laid.”J 
I think it best for the present to consider the birds from North-west 
Australia the same as those from the eastern side. 
Captain Bowyer Bower, writing from Derby, North-west Australia, says : 
“ These birds can generally be observed on a sandy ridge, thinly covered 
with small bushes, but with long grass which grows in bunches to a height of 
some four or five feet ; between these bunches may be seen the birds running 
rather quickly. They generally rise in fours or fives and often separate into 
pairs or go singly away for some sixty or one hundred yards. They generally 
rise about fifteen to twenty feet before one and their flight is noiseless and 
slow ; at first they fly straight for a little distance and then turn at an almost 
right angle. The formation of the trachea in the female is singular : it takes 
four convolutions before entering the lungs, being coiled as it were between 
* Ramsay, Proc. Zool. 8oc. (Lond.) 1877, p. 339. 
t Bemey, Emu, Vol. VL, p. 114, 1907. 
J Keartland, Trans. Roy. Soc. South Austr., Vol. XXII., p. 187, 1898. 
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