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THE BIRDS OE AUSTRALIA. 
salt bush, etc., had taken on the reddish-ochre tinge. These localities were 
invariably on the tablelands and destitute of any large bushes or vegetation 
above six inches to a foot in height, and sparsely placed at that. The bird, 
when observed, would run slowly away along the ground, without the 
slightest noise, and then squat motionless amongst the stones, etc., where it 
could hardly be detected, except by an expert eye, and I would get right upon 
it sometimes before the bird would move off to repeat the performance at no 
great distance, but they seldom took to the wing unless forced to do so.” 
The type of this species was collected by Captain Sturt in South 
Austraha. He says it made its appearance in 1841 suddenly on the plains 
of Adelaide. 
“ 26th April, 1889 : Found to-day a nest of Eudrmnias australis 
containing three eggs ; this is unusually early, for hitherto I have never known 
this bird to breed before September or October. The eggs were placed on 
a small natural mound of earth some four or five inches in diameter and 
about the same height above the surrounding ground, and were completely 
covered with small dried sticks some two or three inches in length. I 
disturbed the bird from the nest on which she was sitting and noticing only 
the sticks, I at first thought that in consequence of the ground all round 
being covered in water to the depth of two or three inches — the result of 
recent heavy rains — ^that the bird in this particular instance had departed 
from the usual custom, and had constructed a kind of nest, and that she 
had not yet deposited her eggs, but on closer examination I found the eggs 
on the bare ground, and that the sticks had been placed carefully over them 
as a safeguard from the keen-eyed crow, as whenever the old bird should 
leave her nest without this covering, situated as they were, they would have 
been very conspicuous, as the little mound in which they were placed was 
the only dry spot for fifty or sixty yards round.”* 
“ 1 have only come across this Dottrel in four years out of the past 
seven [in Richmond District, Queensland] as follows : December, 1901 ; 
January and September, 1902 ; November, 1904 ; and January, March, 
and September, 1905. They are always on the high, dry downs, usually in 
small parties up to ten, sometimes only a single individual ; on one occasion 
I flushed a mob of thirty-one birds.”t 
This bird has received no specific name since Gould described it, so that it 
has an absolutely clean synonymy. 
The only subspecies yet described is the Western form, which I named 
in 1912. 
* Bennett, Austr. Mus. Gat., no. 12, p. 395, 1890 
f Bemey, .Bwim, Vol. VI., p. 112, 1907. 
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