THE AUSTRALIAN NATURALIST. 165 
pheliodes afford shelter to the superb warbler, the Blue 
Wren (Malurus cyanochlamys), a flock of Red Heads 
(Aegintha temporalis), and the yellow-tailed Tit Warbler 
(Acanthiza chrysorrhoea). 
The Peewit (Grallina picata) has an excellent field 
for his strong wings, and the imported Starling is also to 
be seen there, making believe that he is a songster. <A 
Magpie flies gracefully off a dead tree-top and volplanes 
to his mate some 200 yards away; so graceful is the action 
that you feel quite envious as you stumble along the rough 
ground. 
The King Parrot (Aprosnmuictus cyanopygius) and 
Rosella (Platycercus eximius) squabble at the edge of the 
clearing, but delight the eye as they fly like red shafts of 
light through the tall timber. 
At Mittagong the usual town birds are to be observed. 
Jacky Winters, the restless black and white Fly Catcher, 
“Willy Wagtail (Rhipidura motacilloides), and on an 
Acacia rubida, on the banks of a dam called Lake Alexan- 
dria, a white-naped Honey Hater (Welithreptus atricapil- 
lus) a real beauty, well-repays your visit. Mention must 
here be made of Acacia rubida, which was in full flower, 
the leaves and stems having their Autumn tints still linger- 
ing, the appearance from the distance being a solid golden 
mass. ‘The writer was fortunate enough to have a good 
look at a Coach Whip Bird whilst searching down a Gully 
for Passiflora Herbertiana.* Oh, ye birds, beautiful birds, 
rich in plumage and song, with the flowers, what would 
our woods be without you! but why, oh why, did they 
give you such awful uncanny names? No wonder Fabre 
protested so much about the names of his insects, and yet 
an effort is being made to adopt. the trinomial system in- 
stead of trying to simplify the names. The’ purely scien- 
tific side of the question interests but few; a bird can be 
picked to pieces at any time, and to those who are inclined 
to make variations, | would recommend the common house 
sparrow as a most excellent field for the working off. of 
surplus energy. Whilst one must acknowledge the neces- 
sity for the use of a common language in the scientific 
naming of any group of natural history, the haphazard 
way the birds have been named and cut up leaves much to 
* Phosphodes crepitans is the name he is known by, 
