THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA 
Caley’s : ‘ It frequents the upper parts of the Harbour (Port Jackson), 
particularly about the flats, a few miles below Parramatta. The natives 
tell me it feeds upon dead fish, and the bones which they leave. The 
flats is a noted fishing place for the natives ; the water there is shallow^ 
and at ebb tide a great portion of sand is left bare, which, with some 
marshy land adjoining, forms a convenient resort for several species of 
birds.’ The specimens in the Australian Museum Collection were obtained 
at Cooktown and Cairns, North-eastern Queensland, at the Dawson River, 
and Wide Bay in the same State, and a male procured in the Richmond 
River District, New South Wales.” 
I have quoted this in full as there are some points which require notice. 
I have shown that Astur cruentus^ as understood by North, was a myth, so 
that this must be the rarest Australian Falconiform bird. Sharpe, in 1875, 
added the record that two more specimens had been received from Mr. J. B. 
White from the Interior of Queensland, and since that date no specimens have 
heen added to the Bvitish Museum Collection. The note given by North as 
of Caley does not vefer to this bird, but to Haliceetus canorus of Vigors 
and Horsfield, which is the same as Haliastur sphenurus (Vieillot). No note 
whatever is given by Vigors and Horsfield in connection with the present 
species. 
The history of the nesting of the species as given by North reads : “ In 
1883 the late Mr. George Barnard forwarded the skins of this Buzzard 
to Dr. E. P. Ramsay, of the Australian Museum, for the purposes of 
identification, and in September of the following year sent him for description 
one of a set of two eggs taken that month. . . . His son obtained another 
nest on the 27th August, 1889. ... A rather singular occurrence took 
place about the Radiated Goshawk’s nest: when my sons found it there 
were two eggs in it, and one of them shot the male ; about a month after, 
being up that way again, one of them climbed the tree and found another 
egg in this nest, laid after the first eggs were taken and the male bird 
shot. . . . The son, Mr. H. G. Barnard, wrote : ‘ I have only taken two 
nests of Astur radiatus. The first I found one day when out riding near a 
large swamp : my attention was attracted by hearing the loud cries of a 
White Cockatoo {Cacatua galerita). I rode over to the place, and when I 
arrived there a male A. radiatus flew off the ground, leaving the body of a 
freshly-killed Cockatoo. On looking about I saw the nest in a large Moreton 
Bay Ash, and on hitting the tree the female flew off. Not knowing the 
species I did not go up, but rode up next day with my brother Charlie, when 
we shot both birds ; I then went up the tree and obtained the eggs. . . . 
In the second nest were also the hind legs and tail of a Frilled Lizard — the 
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