AUSTRALIAN GOSHAWK. 
Sparrows in it, the Goshawks appear to find it out within a couple of days. 
I have only known them to breed here three times, twice in the same tree 
during successive years (1907-08) and they reared three young each time ; 
from the other nest I took three eggs : it was placed near the top of a tall 
iron-bark eucalyptus, and although I had to pull a rope-ladder up to climb 
the tree, the sitting bird did not flush until I was within a few feet of the nest. 
These birds at times become very daring, and twice I have known them to 
come on to my verandah.” 
Capt. S. A. White has given me the following note : “ This is a very 
common bird in South Australia, although there are not nearly so many as 
there used to be, due no doubt to the continuous war waged against them 
by the settler, for they are very bold birds and will persist in robbing the 
poultry yards in spite of being fired upon. Great difference exists between 
the size of both sexes, some of the old male birds not being half the size of 
the females : then again the great variety in plumage during the different 
phases of life is very perplexing. They build a stick nest and seem to prefer 
the native pine or the she-oak in which to build : the clutch is 3 or 4 in 
number, almost round, colour dull white, or bluish-white ground with very 
irregular blotches or smears of brown.” 
In no notes have I seen any observations with regard to the breeding 
of this bird in immature plumage. Yet this would appear to be a common 
occurrence according to Coles’ report. This writer contended that Gould 
had erred in recognising the bird which he called the Spotted Goshawk 
as the young of the Australian Goshawk. He collected specimens for 
some time in Victoria and out of twenty-five birds, which he considered 
adult, only two of these were in the plumage of the adult Australian 
Goshawk, the other twenty- three being all the so-called immature. I 
conclude that some of these twenty-three must have been breeding to have 
been classed as adult, but no facts are on record. Coles went so far as to 
describe the “ Spotted Goshawk ” as a new species under the name j^stur 
maculosus. Ignorant of synonymy, he was unaware that Vigors and Horsfield 
had described a bird in exactly the same stage of plumage as Astur approximans 
as noted by Gould. I have the types of both before me, and the latter is 
slightly more rufous, but otherwise agrees exactly in all its markings with 
Coles’ types which he presented to the British Museum. 
From North's Austr. Mus. Spec. Cat., no. 1, p. 190-193, 1911, where, as 
usual, full accounts of the nidification and eggs appear, I collate the 
succeeding notes relating to the habits of this bird. 
“ Of the large number of these birds received . . . the greater number 
have been shot while raiding poultry-yards, pilfering chickens which have 
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