THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
and when the young are with them they will lead them in the water, 
and try to take them out of harm’s way. The note is a peculiar 
trumpeting sound, especially that of the male, which is generally made 
with outstretched neck ; there is also a squeaking note, made in a plaintive 
manner while the birds are flying, and so well-known by sportsmen at 
night as the birds are flying from place to place in mid-air. On the 
Swan River, West Australia, these birds were completely exterminated 
some years ago, but by introducing some they are now reinstated in 
their old quarters and are multiplying.” 
Later Mr. Mellor wrote : “ The large numbers of these birds about 
the waters and on the various islands show that the total protection 
afforded them recently in this state has greatly assisted in their increase, 
but there stfll remains much to be done for their welfare, and a move- 
ment is now on foot to prevent the blacks and half-castes from taking 
their eggs and shooting the birds, as the blacks take hundreds of their 
eggs at a single raid round lakes Alexandrina and Albert, and so nullify 
the protection given them by white men. Very few, comparatively 
speaking, were nesting, and we did not come across more than twenty 
or thirty nests with eggs, but hundreds of old nests were seen, giving 
evidence of the raids of the egg-hunters. On one well-grassed island the 
presence of the ‘ shaghead ’ hunters of a couple of years ago was strikingly 
evident, as they had camped on the island to cut off the heads of the 
young shags and so driven away the swans ; scores of nests with the 
rotten eggs were there, so thick and with the grass growing over them 
that at every stride or two you would tread on a nest, and the eggs 
would explode with a loud noise. The nests were built on the open 
ground where a few low bushes grew, but generally speaking they do 
not select spots where the vision is closed in, liking to see aU round 
them so as to be off when danger threatens. The birds have a great 
job to rise in the air with their heavy bodies, and some 30 or 40 
yards are needed to get a complete rise; the bird, with outstretched neck 
and head bent slightly down to assist in getting the balance, flaps along 
the water a short distance, beating the air and the water vigorously and 
working its feet all the time, and even when just above the water will 
continue to tread on the surface of the water for a long distance, and 
eventually drawing up its feet and legs into its belly, sails away with 
outstretched neck.” 
Captain W. E. Leggatt has given a nice report of this bird in 
Tasmania (Littler, Handh. Birds Tas7n., p. 214, 1910) : “ During the day 
the Black Swan keeps to the salt water, and feeds over the sandy mud-flats 
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