58 
Mr. T. Carter on some 
[Ibis, 
at a rock-hole of very bad water at the foot of the ranges. 
We had been systematically hunting through, and beating 
masses of spinifex, often breast high, that grew round our 
camp, for four days, when I heard the familiar “ chat-chat” 
of a Desert-bird, which I had not heard for thirteen years. 
After twice flushing the bird, I shot it, and not being able 
to find where it had fallen, called up one of the natives to 
help m*e, and he very nearly spoilt the specimen by treading 
on it, as it lay on a flat piece of rock between two masses of 
spinifex, missing it by a bare inch. It was a male bird, and 
undoubtedly breeding at the time. We spent two more 
days there, but failed to see or hear any more of them, so 
moved on towards the North-West Cape, as so much time 
was lost in climbing the ranges to obtain drinking-water 
there, as described in the itinerary of this paper. No traces 
of Desert-birds having been seen farther north, I camped at 
the same place on my return journey on 11 August, with 
the same native. Soon after our arrival, we flushed one of 
these birds from a large bunch of spinifex, and I thought 
it looked smaller than usual. I did not shoot, as I wanted 
to see whether the bird had a nest ; so three times, at intervals 
of half an hour or more, I cautiously visited and tapped the 
bunch, but without any results ; so we got the small axe out 
of the buggy, and by the aid of it and a strong sheath-knife, 
cut and pulled that bunch to pieces without finding any 
trace of a nest or seeing the bird. Another careful search 
all round, the next day, yielded no results, so I thought 
that the bird seen was probably one of a recently fledged 
brood, and as my time-limit for returning the hired buggy 
to Maud’s Landing had nearly expired, 1 drove south again, 
alone, having sent the native back to the Cape. 
As I was driving along, late in the same afternoon, I saw 
a Desert-bird in some big spinifex, so tied up my horses and 
had a fruitless search in the vicinity, but could not camp 
there as my horses wanted water, the nearest being several 
miles farther south, where it had to be dug out with a 
conch-shell from a depth of about six feet of loose drifting 
beach-sand. However, I got them watered there before 
