SPOTTED HABRIEK. 
the ground, and mostly over a crop, swampy ground, or open plains covered 
with long grass ; they fly very slowly, working their way all over a field 
backwards and forwards hunting for food sometimes the whole day long; 
and often for several days over the same paddock. Its flight does not 
resemble that of any other bird of prey that I know of. Nowhere have 
I known this species at all plentiful, but odd birds are to be seen in a 
great many districts which I have visited: here they mostly arrive in the 
spring, but on an average I only see about one bird in three years. Only 
once have I known of a nest, about thirty years ago, and from which an 
uncle of mine took a pair of eggs ; the nest was placed in a large red gum- 
tree growing on the bank of the Barwon River, on Barwon Park Station, 
Winchelsea, Victoria. At that time, in that district the bird was always 
known as the Slatey-backed Hawk. As far as my own experience is concerned 
they are quite harmless ; I have never ever known them to attack small 
chickens.” 
From South Australia Captain White wrote : “ Circus assimilis was 
fairly plentiful at the Reed-beds^ in fact all over the Adelaide plains, 
some 30 to 40 years ago (it is many years since they were seen here now). 
I distinctly remember these birds hawking over the standing crops where 
they used to nest on the ground ; they hawk over the salt-bush in the 
north in the same manner, where they nest in trees, but I have never 
found a nest myself in a tree.” 
Dr. A. Morgan’s note is better reading, as the extermination of such a 
splendid bird would be much regretted : “ Circus assimilis is found all 
over the southern parts of South Australia, very common at Kallioola^ 
occasionally seen as far south as Lake Alexandrina, but it is rare there. 
At Kallioola they were generally seen hawking over the salt-bush flats, 
but I did not find out what they were feeding on. They build a large 
stick nest generally in a gum-tree and lay three white eggs, lined with a 
green skin. Two clutches in my collection were taken — the first at Stone 
Hut, 145 miles N. of Adelaide in September, 1893, and the ^cond at 
Kallioola, Lake Torrens, on September 16, 1912.” 
Berney, from the Richmond District, North Queensland, records in the 
Emu, Vol. V., p. 15, 1905 : “ Not uncommon. On the wing their movements 
are slow and measured, as they beat round the edge of a swamp or along the 
edge of a bulrush-covered bore stream. Again, stretching their wings high 
above their back, often at nearly a right angle to one another, the extremity 
of the primaries turned upwards, they sail for a couple of hundred yards on 
rigid pinions, and using the line of the vertebral column as an axis, they roll 
from side to side like a ship at sea. They seldom rise to any height — ^just 
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