J. Cassidy—Australian Bird-Beauties



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The egg is of a purplish-grey tint with purple-brown blotches near

the larger end. It measures about 2J in. long by If in. broad.


The Young .—Almost without feathers, except for a few here and

there, notably on the throat. The skin is a yellowish-grey ; the beak

black, the feet dark, the claws grey, the eyelids closed.


Food. —The food consists for the most part of insects—centipedes

and beetles, and sometimes, when older, snails. When very young the

cry is a high sounding “ tching, tching ” ; but later a burbling, gurgling

note is given out which is not unlike the “ Bullan-Bullan ” which the

natives call the bird.


We now pass on to consider a representative of the Order of the

Basores, or Pigeons.



Order rasores. Family columbine. Genus ptilinopsus.


The members of the Columbidse family are found all over the globe.

They are particularly numerous in Australia where there are no less

than twenty species. Perhaps the simpler division for our purpose

is into great groups ; the one arboreal, the other terrestrial. That

of the trees has a more expansive gullet than that of the earth, and

broad hand-like feet which enable it to keep position on boughs and

sprays while gathering fruit.


Some of the most brilliantly coloured of the Columbidse family

are they of the genus Ptilinopus swainsonii, and they are particularly

numerous in Australia, New Guinea, the Moluccas, the Celebes, and

Polynesia.


One of them, known as Swainson’s Fruit Pigeon, is found in great

numbers in Queensland amid the primeval forests of the Biver Clarence

district, as the brushes are the most congenial to its nature for breeding

and hiding.


The sexes are almost exactly alike in colouring. That famous

ornithologist, Gould, describes the appearance thus : Foreheads

and crowns deep crimson-red, surrounded, except in front, with a

narrowing of light yellow ;• back of the neck greyish-green ; all the

upper surface bright green, tinged with yellow, the green becoming



