COACHWHIP-BIRD. 
animated and sprightly in all its actions, raising its crest and spreading its tail 
in the most elegant manner. These actions become even more animated during 
the spring, when the males may often be seen chasing each other, frequently 
stopping to pour out their notes with great volubility. The food consists of 
insects of various kinds, obtained almost entirely from the ground, and sought 
for by scratching up the leaves and turning over the small stones, precisely 
after the manner of Menura superba .” 
Mr. Edwin Ashby’s notes read : “I was in the Blackall Range, South 
Queensland, at the end of September and beginning of October 1903, and found 
this bird very numerous ; the wonderful “ crack of a coachwhip sound ” 
with which the cock ends his song was one of the commonest sounds of the 
brush, but the charm of its performance is ever fresh. We then noticed that 
the coachwhip sound is always preceded by two soft drawn-out whistles 
and more often than not concluded after a short pause with another note 
repeated twice sounding like the words “ chew, chew,” also the two added 
notes always seemed to come from a few yards away from those first uttered : 
at first we concluded that it was an example of ventriloquism, but before 
leaving the locality my companion and myself were able to prove that the 
final notes were made by the female : we had got two birds between us in a 
narrow belt of separated bramble bushes ; the cock flew across and gave his part 
of the song, and the mate was a little bit in the rear and finished her two notes 
before joining the cock; both birds were within a yard or so from both of 
us and between us so we were able to set the disputed point at rest and demon- 
strate conclusively that the hen finishes the song of the cock. I am under 
the impression that we were the first ornithologists to demonstrate this fact 
conclusively. It is very numerous in the neighbourhood of Evelyn, Victoria, 
a fairly thickly settled district where the birds were unusually tame. On 
October 10th, 1910, I took a clutch of freshly-laid eggs ; the nest was about 
four feet from the ground, made of grass and roots, and the parent called my 
attention to the nest by coming close to me and making a loud scolding noise.” 
Mr. L. G. Chandler sent me, through the intervention of Mr. E. E. Howe, 
the following note : “ For some time I felt convinced that the female Coach- 
whip Bird was alone responsible for the curious double note, sounding phoneti- 
cally like ‘ whitwee,’ that rounds off the ‘ whipcrack ’ note of the male like 
an echo. To-day (February 1st, 1908) I have had evidence that the male can 
and does, under certain conditions, give both calls. In company with Mr. Tom 
Tregellas, I was walking along a road at Olinda, about twenty-six miles from 
Melbourne, in search of ornithological observations, when the call of the male 
Coachwhip Bird was heard in some undergrowth to our left and the responding 
note of the female came from the other side of the road to our right. Knowing 
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