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Vol ‘i« 24 IV * ] NICHOIyLS, A Trip to Central Australia. 49 
flutter from the tree-tops to the stumps in the water, where a 
constant shuffling and rearrangement takes place as the birds 
arrive to drink. As the sun sets the clouds reflect some of the 
colours in the water, so that the surface has a pinkish tinge, and, 
as the birds flutter and hover over it, and dip their bills to drink, 
they are reflected as in a mirror of rose pink glass, and their 
numbers appear double All the while relay after relay comes 
in, and soon the lagoon is a moving mass of birds. When dis¬ 
turbed they rise in clouds and fly low down in and out among 
the trees seeking new resting places. If one stands unobserved 
under a tree the birds fly until they are almost upon one, and 
then swerve away in a long low curve, and their numbers are 
so great that the following birds continuing the upward sweep 
and then a downward one give an undulating wave-like motion 
to the mass of moving birds. The noise of their many wings is 
like the roar of the sea, and as they pass across the water their 
hundreds of reflected forms give the appearance of two great 
flights of birds, one above and the other beneath the surface. 
'The sudden outward flight of hundreds of these birds from a 
£ tree-top is like the bursting of a coloured rocket. No pen may 
f describe the sight of these gaily-colourecl birds, rose-pink and 
French grey, against the purple colours of the late afterglow. 
Many of them, during August, September and October, nest in 
the hollows of the trees along the lagoon, but, as there are not 
sufficient nesting sites for all, the continual fights and squabblings 
that occur are better imagined than described. Along the Cooper, 
where the birds nest in thousands, they fight with the possums, 
and dislodge them from the hollows of the trees, so that the 
possums are to be found mainly in the rabbit burrows at this 
time of the year. Many of the large surface waters in Central 
Australia are saline and both the Galahs and the Topknot Pigeons 
have discovered the knack of scratching in the sand alongside 
the salt water for a supply of fresh. The dingo and the brumby 
have also long since discovered this interesting plan for them¬ 
selves. When the rains come the Galahs go out to the desert 
and remain there, finding plenty of water in the creeks and clay- 
pans. Coming in from the desert at dusk, they fly low over the 
gibbers a foot or two above the plain, as the Torres Strait Pigeons 
do over the coral seas. Along the dry creeks we often found the 
olive-shaped seed-cases of the Coolibahs scattered about in great 
numbers at the foot of the trees. Most of them had a ragged 
hole nibbled at one end, where the seed had been extracted by 
the Galahs when feeding. One afternoon we witnessed a new 
phase and secured a new picture in the life history of the Galahs. 
'I he birds before settling for the night flew over the lagoon, 
mounting higher and higher until they appeared the size of 
Swallows, and then swooping rapidly down they settled in the 
trees. Some hundreds of them, however, settled upon the sloping 
sides and summit of an adjoining sandhill, and presented a novel 
