THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
There is not much in these, save that the latter will be the first record of the 
native name Poo-hook being given to this bird, a rather interesting item in 
view of recent discussions as to the call of this bird. When Vigors and Horsfield 
handled specimens they did not do much better than Latham, as they admitted 
three species, two from New South Wales and one from Tasmania. Still no 
life-history was recorded, the only note reading : “ Mr. Caley calls all these birds 
by the native name of Benit. He observes that they are night birds, and seem 
stupefied when found upon the wing by day,” 
Consequently it was left for Gould to record their habits, and he wrote as 
follows : “ The Tawny-shouldered Podargus is plentifully dispersed over New 
South Wales, where it is not restricted to any peculiar character of country, but 
inhabits alike the thick brushes near the coast, the hiUy districts, and the thinly 
w'ooded plams of the interior. I found it breeding on the low swampy islands 
studduig the mouth of the Hunter, and on the Apple-tree {AngopJioi'a) flats of 
Yarrundi, near the Liverpool Range. Like the rest of the genus, this species 
is strictly nocturnal, sleeping throughout the day on the dead branch of a tree, 
in an upright position across, and never parallel to, the branch, and which it so 
nearly resembles as scarcely to be distinguishable from it. I have occasionally 
seen it beneath the thick foliage of the Casuarince, and I have been informed 
that it sometimes shelters itself in the hollow trunks of the Eucalypti, but I 
could never detect one in such a situation ; I mostly found them in pairs, 
perched near each other on the branches of the gums, in situations not at aU 
sheltered from the beams of the midday sun. So lethargic are its slumbers, 
that it is almost impossible to arouse it^ and I have frequently shot one vdth- 
out disturbing its mate sitting close by ; it may also be knocked off with sticks 
or stones, and sometimes is even taken by hand ; when aroused it flies lazily 
off with heavy flapping wings to a neighbouring tree, and again resumes its 
slumbers until the approach of evening, when it becomes as animated and 
active as it has been previously dull and stupid. The stomach of one I dissected 
induced me to believe that it does not usually capture its prey while on the 
wing, or subsist upon nocturnal insects alone, but that it is in the habit of 
creeping among the branches in search of such as are in a state of repose. The 
power it possesses of shifting the position of the outer toe backwards, as 
circumstances may require, is a very singular feature, and may also tend to 
assist them in their progress among the branches. A bird I shot at Yarrundi, 
in the middle of the night, had the stomach filled with fresh-captured mantis 
and locusts {Phasmidce and Cicadcc), which seldom move at night, and the 
latter of which are generally resting against the upright boles of the trees. 
In other specimens I found the remams of small coleoptera, intermingled with 
the fibres of the roots of what appeared to be a parasitic plant, such as would 
10 
