THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
Many notes relating to this rare bird are given by North in the Austr. 
Mus. Spec. Cat.f No. 1, and from there I quote the following : “ Mr. K. H. 
Bennett’s notes made at Mossgiel, New South Wales, read: ^ Gypoictinia 
melanosternon preys to a great extent on various reptiles, such as snakes, 
frill-necked and sleepy lizards : it has also the singular habit of robbing the 
nests of Emus and Bustards of their eggs. The manner in which they effect 
the abstraction of the Emu eggs — as told me by the blacks — shows an amount 
of cunning and sagacity that one would scarcely give the bird credit for, 
and is as follows : On discovering a nest, the Buzzard searches about for a 
stone, or what is more frequently found here a hard lump of calcined earth. 
Armed with this the Buzzard returns, and should the Emu be on the nest, 
alights on the ground some distance off, and approaches with outstretched 
flapping wings, and the Emu hastily abandons the nest and runs away. 
The Buzzard then takes quiet possession, and with the stone breaks a hole 
in the side of each egg, into which it inserts its claw and carries them off at 
leisure. I subsequently found portions of Emu egg shells in the nest of one 
of these Buzzards, and in a nest to which I recently ascended, which con- 
tained two young ones, I found amongst the remains of various reptiles the 
shells of a couple of Bustard’s eggs. ... I have never known the Buzzard 
to touch carrion, or feed upon anything it did not capture, and except at 
the nest I have never seen them perch on a tree, but have often observed 
them alight on the ground. Since the invasion of rabbits I have noticed 
that it is one of the greatest enemies of the rodent. In a nest in which there 
was a young one, I counted amongst the remains of various other animals 
the skulls of twenty-one rabbits, and in another nest examined, from which 
a young one flew off as I ascended the tree, I found a perfect hecatomb of 
animal remains, those of rabbits predominating. On passing this nest a few 
days afterwards I noticed there were two young ones in it. The young of 
this species, when soon after emerging from the shell, are clothed with pure 
white silky down, with the exception of a crescent-shaped mark beneath the 
eyes, which is black. The down resembles that on the young of Niscetus 
morphnoides, and, similar to that bird, is longer on the head than elsewhere. 
. . . On the 20th March, 1890, I observed a pair feeding upon a rabbit, 
which they had apparently just killed. On the 11th September, 1890, I 
came across an Emu’s nest containing some eggs, or rather egg shells, the 
whole having been broken into on their sides and the contents devoured. 
The stone with which the eggs were broken was in the nest among the egg 
shells. The Buzzard must have carried this stone a long distance, as such 
a thing could not be found anywhere in the vicinity. . . .’ Later : ‘ Is now 
becoming rare in this district, where previously it was immensely abundant. 
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