THE BIRDS OF AUSTRALIA. 
calling ; while sitting out in my garden during the hot summer nights, I found 
it always calls about the same time, at from 8.10 p.m. to 8.20 p.m. Twice 
it has come into my house of an evening, and one early morning when I went 
into my bathroom for a shower, I found it perched on top of my photography 
screen. When handled they show very little sign of fear, their big round eyes 
look at you with an expression ‘ I know you are not going to hurt me, so I am 
not afraid.’ They nest in all kind of places, some high up in large trees, others 
in low stumps, and I have known them to use old nesting-holes in banl^s made 
by Redbacked Kingfishers. Some make their nests in shallow hollows in 
horizontal branches, others will go down a perpendicular stump as much as 
ten or twelve feet. All the nests I have examined have been made of about 
a couple of hands full of Eucalyptus leaves. They usually lay three eggs, 
sometimes four, and the shell is as hard as any egg I know of which is three 
times its size.” 
Mr. E. J. Christian has written me from Victoria : “ I find this species here 
only in the dead trees along the creek. It is chiefly seen in the evening, just 
as the sun goes down, for then it is not too late for many insects to have 
retired. It is a most valuable bird, as it catches moths, grasshoppers, beetles, 
etc., in its large mouth. Its favourite haunt is in a hole in a dead tree, or a 
hoUowed-out thick bough which has had the end broken off. Its flight is 
perfectly straight, fast and noiseless.” 
Mr. F. E. Howe’s notes read : “ Between Ringwood and Bayswater, Vic- 
toria, this bird appears to be fairly numerous, but they are very local. In a 
certain paddock we are always sure of flushing them from the hollows of a 
few trees, that seem to be a favoured camping-ground of theirs. They always 
meet us half-way, that is to say, they come to the mouth of the hollow and 
are watching us as we see them. When alarmed by a stick whizzing by they 
fly straight into another hollow ; there is no uncertainty, no looking for a place 
of refuge, but a straight flight to and into the hole. If we dislodge them 
again they fly into another hole. In doing this they do not fly first on to a 
limb, but go straight in. In the breeding season the hollow is always lined 
with eucalyptus leaves, and thereon they deposit four or five glossy white 
eggs, slightly elliptical. Mr. J. A. Ross found a nest in the hollow of a Mallee 
bush at Carina in 1908 containing three eggs, and upon revisiting it a week 
later the hollow was untenanted, and the eggs found broken on the ground 
beneath. Its flight is very soft and straight, and the wings are moved at a 
fairly fast rate. In the Mm-ray pines at Pine Plains they are fairly common, 
and we flushed a bird from a hoUow : the bird had ‘ jumped ’ a nest of 
Barnardius haniardi, and she was sitting on her own as weU as the eggs of 
the parrot.” 
