52 
NICHOLAS, ./ Trip to Central Australia. ['m juT>" 
secure a picture. Just as 1 close my note-book, I hear a note 
not unlike that of the Avocets, and four White-headed Stilts lly 
over where I am sitting. They wheel and turn, coming up into 
the wind as they settle thirty feet away, their beautiful black 
and white plumage Hashing in the sunlight. Their red legs are 
conspicuous as they wade about and commence to feed. Imme¬ 
diately upon their arrival the Avocets lly away down the water- 
hole. They have just returned, but keep a long way from the 
Stilts. I then noticed a peculiar feeding habit of one of the 
Avocets. With great swiftness it Hew over the surface of the 
water, wheeling and turning like a Swallow in chase of an insect 
of some kind, and during its flight I saw it dip its bill down to 
the surface of the water and pick up something. At other times 
whilst feeding they will dive the head under water and feed like 
a duck or waterhen, with their feet in the air. In shallow water, 
with legs only submerged, they walk fast, dipping the bill and 
head completely under water at each step, and then raising the 
head to swallow quickly, as a Tern does on the wing. These 
birds are more quarrelsome than the Teal, and are constantly 
chasing and upbraiding one another with shrill calls. 
At Lake Letty I saw one of these birds slashing its long up¬ 
turned bill from side to side over the surface of the water, in 
the same way that a man would use a curved sickle. It waded 
knee-deep along the bank for some distance, using its bill in this 
manner, and was gathering a meal of the minute midges that 
floated and danced on the surface of the lake. 
On the road to the Diamentina I saw a Black-faced Wood- 
Swallow (Artamus cinereus) on an ant-heap feeding upon the 
ants. This, one of the smallest Wood-Swallows, is a dainty 
bird, practically all grey in colour except a small patch of black 
about the eye. It is to be found throughout South Central Aus¬ 
tralia from the Cooper to Cowarie on all classes of country- 
gibber plain, saltbush, sandhill or river-course. A small colony 
of these birds clustered in two or three layers each evening at 
dusk on the rough bark of a Coolibah on the bank of the Derwent 
River at Cowarie, each bird closely pressed against the other. 
When alighting they made use of the tail after the manner of the 
Spine-tail Swifts to aid them in securing a firm support. On 
the side of the tree in the dusk they looked like a small knob or 
excrescence on the bark. Their flight is alternately flying and 
soaring, and we have seen a bird hovering for minutes at a 
time, like a Kestrel, eight or nine feet above the ground. They 
remained so steady in the one position that we thought of the 
possibility of getting a cinema picture of them. When pursued 
they became very wild and difficult of approach, but as a general 
rule they were easy to secure. Their only note was a short 
chirruping twitter, and their favourite vantage point a dead twig 
of a cotton or saltbush, a few feet above the ground. I was 
