50 THE WOMBAT. 
Tits (4 pusilla) for some time, saw one of them fly down toa 
patch of bracken, where their nest was beautifully built in the dead 
curled top of a fern. It contained three newly hatched young. 
W. had to retnrn to Geelong that evening, so A. and I parted 
from him to continue our ride to Airey’s Inlet, eight miles to the 
westward. ‘The road lies through messmate and peppermint scrub 
all the way, and rises steeply at first till the top of ‘Mount Misery” 
is reached. ‘The wind had veered into the west and brought with 
it driving showers of rain, through which, as we reached the flat 
top of the hill, we saw on our right the bare desolate country 
dipping to the Anglesea Valley and rising again on the north 
towards the upland plains about Mount Moriac. A solitary Hagle 
(Aquila audazx) sailed majestically athwart the valley. ‘lhe cry of 
a Grey Crow-shrike (Strepera fuliginosa) sounded close at hand; 
we left the track and crossed the heath to see if it were nesting in 
some dwarf gums, but without success. Returning, I was startled 
by a bird that flew hurriedly from almost under my feet. It was 
a Fulvous-fronted Honey-eater, and in the nest, cunningly placed 
a few inches from the ground in a small heath-like plant, were a 
pair of white eggs sparingly spotted with brownish red at the larger 
end. I wondered no longer that I had never previously found this 
bird’s eggs. {t would only be possible to discover the nest by 
some such chance as this, or else by a systematic beating of the 
ground at dusk. 
We presently reached a spot known as the Hut Gully, where 
a small creek crosses the road and there is a thicket of ti-tree. 
This held three nests of the Brown ‘lit, of which one belongec to 
last season, one had been used earlier in this, and the third 
contained three half-fledged young. All the nests were about five 
feet from the ground. tight on the road in the same thicket, was 
an empty nest of the Tasmanian Honeyeater. ‘he birds were 
about and the nest seemed new. 
A mile farther on is a flat timbered with the graceful pepper- 
mint gums. Here a bevy of Choughs ( Corcorax melanorhamphus) 
were conspicuous with black and white plumage as they flew from 
tree to tree, alternately whistling mourn:ully and screeching. From 
a tall messmate over the road a Grey Crow-shrike slipped silently. 
Standing beneath, we saw the nest far out on one of the top boughs, 
but the tree was high and the sunset near, so we deferred 
consideration of the matter till our return. 
Hence to Airey’s the road follows the Distil Creek, at a 
distance of a hundred yards or so all the way, and from the 
scrubby banks we heard several species of Honeyeaters calling, 
while all the other bush birds seemed to increase in numbers. 
Presently we crossed the Distil and Alum Creeks, which unite a 
