THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
“ On 4th November, 1900, I went ... to a dam . . . near Hamilton 
[Victoria] ... A large spreading Red Gum tree, standing in about three 
feet of water, contained the larger number of nests of the Shags and 
Spoonbills . . . The tree [was] simply covered in nests, from top to the 
lowest branches and along each limb, . every place that could possibly 
support a nest was occupied. The large stick-made structures of the 
Spoonbill, forty or fifty in number, were well whitewashed by the excreta 
of the birds, as indeed was the whole tree, most of them containing 
well-feathered young birds, several of which climbed out to the end of 
the limb on which their nests were placed, and flew off to perch on 
another tree, or else drop into the water and slowly swim to the nearest 
land. Other nests contained partially-incubated or fresh eggs, the usual 
clutch being four, several containing three. The pure white eggs were 
quite fresh, some, however, were stained with the yolk of an egg which 
had been broken. The yolk is a very rich red, the stain not being 
easily removed ; it has also a strong odour when fresh, and an appalling 
one when rotten ... By the time the young Spoonbills are fledged the 
nest has generally been trodden into a flat platform of sticks hardly 
large enough to hold them.”* 
I described the bird from the Northern Territory as a subspecies, 
“ but for the present wiU consider Australia as having only one 
species, and the birds from North Queensland, Northern Territory, and 
North-west Australia are included with those from the rest of Australia. 
The bird figured and described is a female, collected by the late 
William Stalker in Alexandria, Northern Territory, July, 1905. 
* Macgillivray, Auatr. Mue. Sp. Cat., no. 1, Vol. IV., p. 17, 1913. 
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