[{"recordType":"article","licence":{"name":"Attribution 4.0 International","shortName":"CC BY","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"dateModified":"2020-06-10T23:04:00Z","title":"Apple QuickTime Software 1991 - A Technical Description","displayTitle":"Apple QuickTime Software 1991 - A Technical Description","keywords":["Apple (computer)","Computers","Computing"],"localities":[],"content":"
QuickTime is software whose functions include the recording, editing and playback of sound and video. It can also be used to convert such media to and from formats.
\nQuickTime supports the incorporation of movies and audio into files created using applications such as Microsoft Word or in pages displayed by web browsers.
\nQuickTime is software whose file format or architecture:
\n1. Functions as a multimedia container for tracks that store data that is in the form of video, audio, animation, images or text in one or more of a wide range of supported file formats.
2. Allows the data to be edited as time-based data using tools that are provided, that is, Cut, Copy and Paste functions, the merging of separate audio and video tracks, and the placing of video tracks on a virtual canvas with options of cropping and rotation.
3. Supports the saving and exporting (encoding) of the file in a range of file formats (as supported by compatible codecs [coder-decoders]) and thus facilitates a range of file conversions, including for video capable iPod, Apple TV and iPhone.
4. Allows the data to be 'played', that is displayed on screen (or in the case of an audio track, 'heard') for the duration of the stored tracks.
Applications such as Final Cut Pro, iMovie and Premiere Pro allow the users to display, edit, copy and paste QuickTime movies in a similar way to working with text and graphics. They commonly incorporate additional tools for working with the data, such as video transitions and audio filters, that are more extensive than those provided by QuickTime itself.
\nExamples of software from Apple that take advantage of QuickTime include iTunes and iMovie.
\nQuickTime has both Macintosh and Windows versions.
\nThe system software for the iPod touch and the iPhone also includes QuickTime. QuickTime for Macintosh and Windows includes a basic player application called (understandably) QuickTime Player. In earlier versions, QuickTime Player included editing and export functions that are only accessible in later versions on payment of a fee for a licence key. The unlocked version is known as QuickTime Pro. Other applications have access to the full QuickTime feature set whether or not a Pro licence has been purchased.
\nQuickTime was released on 2 December 1991, although it was first demonstrated publicly at a World Wide Developers' Conference in May 1991. There an astonished audience saw QuickTime's lead developer use QuickTime to play Apple's famous 1984 TV commercial 'Blade Runner' (used at the release of the first Macintosh) on a Macintosh, at the time, an astounding technological breakthrough. At first, the screen size and number of frames per second of a movie played with QuickTime was extremely limited, but this was progressively improved over a number of years until QuickTime was able to sustain playing video full screen at 25 frames per second, that is, at a size and rate comparable with that of analogue video tape.
\nA person from Melbourne who tested QuickTime in 1991 prior to its release described it as 'an astounding technological breakthrough'. Additionally it was well in advance of Microsoft's competing technology, Video for Windows, which did not appear until November 1992. He was working for an advertising agency at the time. He became excited about QuickTime's animation and sound capabilities, its ability to compress video files, and its use of a virtual reality panoramic photo format. The video editing software of the time required the total resources of a dedicated computer and thus was not transportable. Additionally it was very expensive; only large institutions could afford such software. QuickTime was cheap and stored on a single CD. He was thus able to use QuickTime at home and share in the raising of a family. He says that it still took many years before video was able to become full screen and 25 frames per second.
\nIn launching a video production business in 1992, the donor purchased a QuickTime Developers Kit as well as the following items:
\nThe Compact Disks were read by an Apple CD Reader attached to the donor's Quadra 900 by a SCSI cable. Apple was one of the first companies to release a CD Reader, which it did in 1991. This facilitated the delivery of larger sized files of the new multi-megabyte applications including the QuickTime files on these CDs.
\n","contentSummary":null,"types":["Historical Narrative"],"authors":[{"firstName":"Noel","lastName":"Jackling","fullName":"Mr Noel S. Jackling","biography":"Volunteer with the Apple Company Collection at Museums Victoria.","profileImage":null},{"firstName":"Stephen","lastName":"Withers","fullName":"Mr Stephen Withers","biography":null,"profileImage":null}],"contributors":[],"media":[{"type":"image","alternativeText":null,"large":{"width":2694,"height":2048,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/21/237771-large.jpg","size":611226},"medium":{"width":1500,"height":1140,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/21/237771-medium.jpg","size":151347},"small":{"width":658,"height":500,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/21/237771-small.jpg","size":40856},"thumbnail":{"width":250,"height":250,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/21/237771-thumbnail.jpg","size":11243},"id":"media/237771","dateModified":"2016-11-10T03:36:00Z","caption":"Apple Macintosh Software - QuickTime Developers Kit","creators":[],"sources":["Museums Victoria"],"credit":null,"rightsStatement":"Copyright Museums Victoria / CC BY","licence":{"name":"Attribution 4.0 International","shortName":"CC BY","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"}}],"yearWritten":"2009","parentArticleId":null,"childArticleIds":[],"relatedArticleIds":[],"relatedItemIds":["items/1241375","items/1231822"],"relatedSpecimenIds":[],"id":"articles/2780"},{"recordType":"article","licence":{"name":"Attribution 4.0 International","shortName":"CC BY","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"dateModified":"2020-06-10T23:04:00Z","title":"Linear and non-linear editing - Adobe Premiere and QuickTime","displayTitle":"Linear and non-linear editing - Adobe Premiere and QuickTime","keywords":["Apple (computer)","Computers","Computing"],"localities":[],"content":"
This document explains the difference between linear and non-linear editing. It goes on to look at QuickTime and Adobe Premiere, which were early non-linear editing tools for the Macintosh
\nNon-linear editing is a non-destructive editing process. In video editing, the terms 'linear video editing' and 'non-linear video editing' have technical meanings, which can be explained as follows:
\nLinear video editing describes a process in which scenes are copied from one video tape to another, using two tape VCRs, in the order required. The new tape is thus created in a linear fashion. The disadvantage of this method is that it is not possible to insert or delete scenes from the new tape without re-copying all the subsequent scenes. Linear editing was the method originally used with analogue video tapes.
\nNon-linear video editing is achieved by loading the video material into a computer from analogue or digital tape. The editing process creates a new 'tape' by storing all the commands entered by the operator. This method allows the operator to cut, copy and paste scenes in any order and make any changes desired. At the completion of the editing process the computer can then build a new file by applying the commands to the original digital image stored on the disk. The original digital image on the disk is unchanged. The new video file can then be outputted to a video tape, attached to an email or posted to the web.
\nQuickTime and Adobe Premiere were early non-linear editing tools for the Macintosh.
\nAdobe Premiere v 1.0 is a non-linear video editor for the Macintosh computer. It was first released in December 1991 and made use of functions available within QuickTime (also released in December 1991) to enable professional digital editing of time-based imaging.
\nQuickTime permitted the editing of short movies; Adobe Premiere was a fully professional video editor. Using Adobe Premiere software allowed easy video editing at a very low cost compared to the professional systems in use in those days - AUD$20,000 versus AUD$100,000. Video editing using Adobe Premiere could be performed non-destructively, and inclusive of special effects, titling and transitions previously the domain of high-end production firms.
\nThe development of the QuickTime video format is an example of Apple bringing advanced computing to the general population.
\nBy the end of 1991, video editing was brought to a slightly broader group than high-end production houses through:
\nFurther advances followed in 1993, with the incorporation of analogue to digital video converter cards into the Centris and Quadra AV series of Apple computers, though none of these machines had the RAM capacity of the Quadra 900. Subsequently digital video converter cards were incorporated into the full range of Apple computers. Then, in 1999, great strides were made in empowering a wide group of video enthusiasts to engage in digital video production. The iMac DV SE computer was released with a FireWire port, which enabled Apple's iMovie application, which came bundled with the iMac DV SE, to import video footage to the iMac using the FireWire interface on most MiniDV format digital video cameras. From then on, movie editing at home was accessible to the general computing public. By then, transitions which took hours to be processed on the Quadra 900 in 1991 could take place in minutes. From 2001 Apple's iDVD was also bundled with the computer and this software enabled the edited movie to be burnt to a DVD without resorting to a third-party application. Also in 1999, Apple introduced a fully professional video editing application, Final Cut Pro, which was a direct competitor on the Macintosh to Adobe Premiere.
","contentSummary":null,"types":["Historical Narrative"],"authors":[{"firstName":"Noel","lastName":"Jackling","fullName":"Mr Noel S. Jackling","biography":"Volunteer with the Apple Company Collection at Museums Victoria.","profileImage":null},{"firstName":"Stephen","lastName":"Withers","fullName":"Mr Stephen Withers","biography":null,"profileImage":null},{"firstName":"Brian","lastName":"Livingston","fullName":"Mr Brian R. Livingston","biography":"Volunteer with the Apple Company Collection at Museums Victoria.","profileImage":null}],"contributors":[],"media":[{"type":"image","alternativeText":null,"large":{"width":1832,"height":1444,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/1/146801-large.jpg","size":486552},"medium":{"width":1500,"height":1182,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/1/146801-medium.jpg","size":231325},"small":{"width":634,"height":500,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/1/146801-small.jpg","size":57856},"thumbnail":{"width":250,"height":250,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/1/146801-thumbnail.jpg","size":15105},"id":"media/146801","dateModified":"2016-11-10T04:29:00Z","caption":"Negative","creators":["Photographer: Laurie Richards Studio"],"sources":["Museums Victoria"],"credit":null,"rightsStatement":"Copyright Museums Victoria / All Rights Reserved","licence":{"name":"All Rights Reserved","shortName":"All Rights Reserved","uri":""}}],"yearWritten":"2009","parentArticleId":null,"childArticleIds":[],"relatedArticleIds":["articles/2834","articles/2785"],"relatedItemIds":["items/1241384"],"relatedSpecimenIds":[],"id":"articles/2786"},{"recordType":"article","licence":{"name":"Attribution 4.0 International","shortName":"CC BY","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"dateModified":"2020-06-10T23:04:00Z","title":"Apple Computers & Digital Video Editing","displayTitle":"Apple Computers & Digital Video Editing","keywords":["Apple (computer)","Computers","Computing"],"localities":[],"content":"The invention of video tape recording and lightweight video cameras soon resulted in the displacement of 8mm film as the primary means for amateurs to capture video. Editing video tape recordings was carried out physically and good results were difficult to achieve.
\nIn 1989, in a major advance in the editing of videotapes, Avid Technology Inc introduced a digital non-linear editing system initially for use on the Macintosh II. (See below for an explanation of non-linear and linear editing)
\nVideos could be edited on disk as opposed to physically editing video tape or film. Analogue video to digital video conversion was expensive using the software, computer and plug-in printed circuit board. But it allowed high-end production houses to edit film or video more easily and non-destructively. Film was scanned and digitised, edited and then printed back to film.
\nThe first feature film, edited using the Avid system, came out in 1994. It was called 'Let's Kill All the Lawyers'. In 1995, 'The English Patient' was edited using the Avid system, for which it was awarded the first editing Oscar for a digitally edited film.
\nIn the meantime, in October 1991, Apple introduced the Macintosh Quadra 900. At the time of its release it was a state of the art computer with, for its time, a very fast 25MHz Motorola 68040 processor and a very large capacity to address up to 256MB of RAM.
\nJust two months later, on 2 December 1991, Apple released its QuickTime software. Among other capabilities, QuickTime supported the display of movies on screen, initially in a postage-stamp sized frame but later in full screen at 25 frames per second. The QuickTime software provided basic editing functions, such as cropping. Its file format functioned as a multimedia container for tracks to store video, audio, animation or text.
\nThe Quadra 900 was one of the first computers that could be used to create and edit movies using QuickTime. This was achieved by plugging a printed circuit board, such as a VideoSpigot card, into the Quadra 900. This transferred data from the camera to the computer through a cable. The computer read and converted the camera's analogue video into digital video, compressed it and saved it to the hard disk in QuickTime (.mov) format.
\nThe VideoSpigot needed software (ScreenPlay) installed in the Quadra to initiate and control the operation of the Videospigot card. The Quadra's support for a second monitor allowed multiple windows to be viewed whilst working in graphics or video.
Also in December 1991, Adobe released a fully professional digital non-linear editing program (see below) called Adobe Premiere. This allowed editing to be performed non-destructively, and special effects to be included, such as titling and transitions. The editing tools provided by Adobe Premiere were much more extensive than those provided by QuickTime. When editing was complete, the new video file could then be outputted to a video tape.
A modest Avid system in 1992 would have cost AUD$100,000 and with additional modules, AUD$150,000 or more, making it clearly the province of the high-end production house.
\nHowever, AUD$20,000 would have bought a Quadra 900 with a second monitor, VideoSpigot, CD-ROM reader, analogue video camera and Adobe Premiere. This brought video editing to a slightly broader group than high-end production houses.
\nFurther advances followed in 1993, with the incorporation of analogue to digital capability into the Centris and Quadra AV series of Apple computers, though none of these machines had the RAM capacity of the Quadra 900. Subsequently digital video conversion capability was incorporated into the full range of Apple computers.
\nThen, in 1999, the relatively inexpensive iMac DV SE computer was released, costing US$1500. This greatly increased the number of video enthusiasts engaged in digital video production. The computer came with increased RAM, a FireWire port and the iMovie application. Importation of video footage was now carried out using the FireWire interface, which was to be found on most MiniDV format digital video cameras.
\nFrom then on, movie editing at home or school was accessible to the general public. Improvements in computer technology meant transitions that took hours to be processed on the Quadra 900 in 1991 could be rendered in minutes on a Mac.
\nAlso in 1999, Apple introduced a fully professional video editing application, Final Cut Pro, a direct competitor on the Macintosh to Adobe Premiere. More importantly, it could to do work that previously required access to an expensive Avid studio. Initially it came bundled with the FireWire-enabled Power Mac G3. Final Cut Pro gradually became established as an essential tool for editors. It came into direct competition with Avid, forcing the one-time leader in non-linear editing to dramatically lower its prices.
\nFrom 2001, Apple's iDVD was also bundled with the computer and this software enabled the edited movie to be burnt straight to a DVD complete with menus and titles without resorting to a third-party application. In 2005, Apple released iMovie HD which supported the newly introduced high-definition video format HDV.
\nIn video editing, the terms 'linear video editing' and 'non-linear video editing' have technical meanings, which can be explained as follows:
\nLinear video editing describes a process in which scenes are copied from one video tape to another, using two tape VCRs, in the order required. The new tape is thus created in a linear fashion. The disadvantage of this method is that it is not possible to insert or delete scenes from the new tape without re-copying all the subsequent scenes. Linear editing was the method originally used with analogue video tapes.
\nNon-linear video editing is achieved by loading the video material into a computer from analogue or digital tape. The editing process creates a new 'tape' by storing all the commands entered by the operator. This method allows the operator to cut, copy and paste scenes in any order and make any changes desired. At the completion of the editing process the computer can then build a new file by applying the commands to the original digital image stored on the disk. The original digital image on the disk is unchanged. The new video file can then be outputted to a video tape, attached to an email or posted to the web.
References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Avid, viewed 16/02/2009.
","contentSummary":null,"types":["Historical Narrative"],"authors":[{"firstName":"Noel","lastName":"Jackling","fullName":"Mr Noel S. Jackling","biography":"Volunteer with the Apple Company Collection at Museums Victoria.","profileImage":null},{"firstName":"Stephen","lastName":"Withers","fullName":"Mr Stephen Withers","biography":null,"profileImage":null},{"firstName":"Brian","lastName":"Livingston","fullName":"Mr Brian R. Livingston","biography":"Volunteer with the Apple Company Collection at Museums Victoria.","profileImage":null}],"contributors":[],"media":[{"type":"image","alternativeText":null,"large":{"width":633,"height":480,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/2/146502-large.jpg","size":54108},"medium":{"width":633,"height":480,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/2/146502-medium.jpg","size":47086},"small":{"width":659,"height":500,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/2/146502-small.jpg","size":52944},"thumbnail":{"width":250,"height":250,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/2/146502-thumbnail.jpg","size":12994},"id":"media/146502","dateModified":"2016-11-10T04:29:00Z","caption":"Negative","creators":["Photographer: Laurie Richards Studio"],"sources":["Museums Victoria"],"credit":null,"rightsStatement":"Copyright Museums Victoria / All Rights Reserved","licence":{"name":"All Rights Reserved","shortName":"All Rights Reserved","uri":""}}],"yearWritten":"2009","parentArticleId":null,"childArticleIds":[],"relatedArticleIds":["articles/2786","articles/2785"],"relatedItemIds":["items/1241389","items/1241375","items/1241384","items/1238832","items/1231822"],"relatedSpecimenIds":[],"id":"articles/2834"},{"recordType":"article","licence":{"name":"Attribution 4.0 International","shortName":"CC BY","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"dateModified":"2020-06-10T23:04:00Z","title":"The Ferranti Sirius in Museum Victoria's Collection - brief technical description.","displayTitle":"The Ferranti Sirius in Museum Victoria's Collection - brief technical description.","keywords":["Computers","Computing"],"localities":[],"content":"
The Ferrranti Sirius was sold with the basic CPU which could be expanded if necessary to increase the amount of memory. It used nickel acoustic delay line memory in trays. The CPU was the main unit and had 1000 word of store with a word = 40 bits. The system could be expanded with extra memory units with 3000 word store but the maximum configuration was three extra units to give 10,000 word of store. Input and output was via punch tape with a teletype and punch machines. The computer was operated by a small unit set on a desk in front of the CPU. The desk was separate from the CPU but supported by two small metal file cabinets on each side.
\nIt was designed by Ferranti Limited at their West Gorton factory in England and it was developed/manufactured from 1958-1962. It was one of the earliest computers to use transistors rather than valves (vacuum tubes). Thus it was relatively small (small enough to stand behind an office desk), had low power requirements, it ran off a standard 230 volt 13 amp socket and it did not need special air conditioning. A full system consumed about 2kW. It had a decimal display and a facility to slow the processor for demonstration and educational purposes.
\nICIANZ purchased a Ferranti Sirius with 7,000 word of store which equates to one CPU and two extra memory units.
The Rigid Frame Analysis programs calculate, for any multi-storied, rigid framed structure, the joint rotations, storey translations, and end moments in each member, for a number of columns 'm' and a number of stories 'n'. The product 'mn' must be less than 150.
The programs are based on solution by successive approximations of the slope-deflection equations for each structural frame. Separate analyses are carried out for each of the vertical and horizontal loading conditions. The programs require only the right-hand and lower member stiffnesses, and the fixed-end moments for each joint, and the incremental lateral load and the height for each storey.
The series of simultaneous equations representing the rigid framed structure are solved by relaxation methods, that is, certain values are assumed originally for all of the joint rotations and unit translations, the residual of each equation is calculated and either the joint rotation or unit translation is adjusted so that this residual becomes equal to zero. When all residuals become simultaneously equal to zero, the system of equations is solved.
\nResults are punched on 5-hole paper tape, which can then be printed out using the Flexowriter.
These programs have been used extensively by structural engineers to the extent that more than twenty multi-storey buildings have been analysed in one or more frames.
The five Rigid Frame Analysis programs are:
T515.1 Total Moments
T515.2 Wind Loads
T515.3 Incremental Moments
T515.4 Produce Machine Data
T515.5 Incremental and Data Moments
Acknowledging the Contributions of Women to the Gatherings
The Women on Farms Gathering Memorial Plaque is prominently displayed at each gathering to acknowledge the special role of key women in past gatherings.
It was initiated by Maree Ryan, a member of the organising commitee for the Ouyen Gathering in 1998 and presented with the names of Eileen Patricia (Pat) Hall from Mittyack, and Kathleen (Kath) Paynter from Chillingolah, who had both attended every gathering since its inception in 1990. Over the years other women have been acknowledged on the plaque including Rhonda Weatherhead and Muriel Dick.
\nMallee Root - a Symbol of an Enduring Spirit
The memorial plaque is made from a Mallee root, cut and polished by John Hughes, a local craftsman from Manangatang.
The north west corner of Victoria was the last region of Victoria to be settled. This was largely because of the challenges of this dry, semi-arid area and the abundance of mallee scrub. The mallee eucalypt has many stems that rise up from a large bulbous woody root (lignotuber); they are tough trees and can withstand the ravages of droughts, fires, and land clearing. Farming in the mallee demands the same tenacity and toughness that characterise the mallee scrub.
\nThe mallee root was also selected as one of the icons for the Swan Hill Gathering to symbolise the enduring spirit, energy, beauty and resilience of rural women. The single furrow plough on the top of the plaque directly references the Mallee farming community.
\nPat Hall
The plaque was created following the tragic death of Pat Hall in January 1997. While on holiday at Rosebud, she was injured in a car accident and died from her injuries two days later. Pat was remembered as 'A woman of many dimensions ... kind, generous and compassionate - a person who truly celebrated life' (Women on Farms Gathering, 1998b, p.3). Jenny Simpson recalled at the Ouyen Gathering how 'Those of us who attended the first Women on Farms Gathering in Warragul some 9 years ago will all remember how Pat and her good friend Marion shared their stories of life on a Mallee farm with the Gathering. Both their stories brought with them laughter and tears. It was the next day that Pat and Marion decided with the few other women from the Mallee that it would be fun to hold the next Gathering' (Women on Farms Gathering, 1998a, p.9). And so began the annual tradition of gatherings of rural women across Victoria.
Pat was also the inspiration and energy behind the organisation of the 1998 Ouyen Gathering and its theme United We Meet United We Stand. The Ouyen Gathering and the Ecumenical Service were dedicated to the memory of Pat Hall.
\nKath Paynter
Kath was born in Ballarat, 1922. Her parents were pioneers of the Chillingollah district where she lived all her life, except for secondary schooling and teaching. She left teaching and married a local farmer in 1948 and raised six children. In addition to farming Kath taught at the Lady Byrnes Centre for Intellectually Handicapped people for seven years.
Kath was a member of the 1995 Swan Hill Gathering organising committee and attended all of the gatherings. She loved the concept of the gatherings as a way to renew friendships, share experiences and swap ideas and information.
\nDedication to Pat Hall and Kath Paynter, by Yvonne Jennings at the 1998 Ouyen Gathering
The passing of our dear Pat Hall from Mittyack and Kath Paynter from Chillingollah saddened us all. I recently read a book called 'For She is the Tree of Life: Grandmothers through the eyes of women writers', edited by Valerie Kack-Brice, and it brought home to me the real value of our elder members - their wisdom, stability, continuity and practical commonsense.
In this book the stories of many different grandmothers are told and there is something to be learned from each - although like Pat and Kath, each of these women would probably be amazed to hear that.
The following quote is particularly apt I feel: \n'The Cut of Her Cloth':I believe Pat and Kath are here with us and the last thing they would want is to have us overcome by their not having a visible presence. As 'grandmothers' of the gathering who have passed on and become part of that spirit of the Gathering that is generated each year when we get together I know that they would not want us to dwell on and be weakened by their passing, but instead be strengthened and healed by being together.
\nAs a mark of respect and in their memory a board with their names has been made and people from other areas are welcome to add women from their area if they wish. It will be passed on to each Gathering with the banners. (Women on Farms Gathering, 1998a, p.7)
\nDedication to Rhonda Weatherhead, by Marie Harding at the 1999 Warragul Gathering:
6th June 1937 - 7th August 1998
Rhonda died last year on the 7th August, she was born in Yarram on 6th June 1937, 61 was far too young to die. Rhonda was a true Gippslander, she went to school in Gormandale and Traralgon. At 20 she fell in love and married a young farmer from Tynong North, Graham Weatherhead. They had four children - Sally, Ian, Jan and Allan, very sadly Ian died of SIDS.
\nOn the farm Rhonda shared the workload with Graham. Her country upbringing, love of animals and boundless energy made her a good farmer. Rhonda was an inaugural member of our Women on Farms organisation and co-founder of the Tynong North Community Group. She was also an active member of the Uniting Church. Rhonda was a fun lady and a bit of a dare devil. She had an infectious laugh, and would have a go at anything. When Rhonda and Graham retired 4 years ago they expected to have a long life of fun in the sun in the northern winters in Mackay, Queensland. But sadly that wasn't to be. Rhonda was the one who introduced me and many others in this room to the Women on Farms and I like many here tonight miss this lady greatly. (Women on Farms Gathering, 1999, p.36)
\nDedication to Muriel Dick, by Shirley Martin at the 2001 North East Women on Farms Gathering, Beechworth:
Vale Muriel Dick
This year we remember Muriel Dick, a true pioneer and co-founder of the original Gathering. In marking Muriel's death from breast cancer, we acknowledge her friendship, sense of humour and enormous contribution to the 'movement'. Muriel's name will be added to the women on Farms Gatherings Memorial. Shirley Martin spoke about Muriel's life and legacy:
\nWhen I first met Muriel back in 1988 at an informal meeting of setting up the Skills Courses for Women on Farms I thought to myself my goodness what have I met? This woman, farming over 200 acres, running 100 breeders on her own, very independent, strong willed, strong in her views on farming, especially looking after the environment.
\nWhen Muriel was talking to farming women who lacked self confidence in themselves, she would encourage them to have a go. Muriel herself was once in the supporting role, saying 'yes my dear' till the death of her late husband. Then the shock hit her; sell up the farm, live in town or take on the challenge of managing the farm herself? And yes, Muriel took that challenge on and all the women who knew her could understand why.
\nFor many Gippsland farming women Muriel was a real light in their life, always making sure that any new women who came to the Women on Farms Discussion Group would not be alone and feel uncomfortable. Muriel enjoyed these discussion group days and the Gatherings where she was able to chat with other farming women. Often she would give a cheeky grin, cover her lips and say 'Oh, was that me? I will be quiet.' But five minutes later away she would go again. You could always guarantee that the farm and her two beloved dogs, sex and men would come into the conversation. There are three sayings that Muriel used, they were 'Say it as it really is'; 'Yes I do know what you are saying and where you are coming from' and 'Always love and nurture yourself'.
\nThe women who have come to know Muriel as a friend are very grateful for the friendship and knowledge that she has given to them over the years. Many thanks must go to Muriel because of the informal chat that led to the very first Gathering at Warragul in 1990 and we are all here this weekend in Beechworth to enjoy this wonderful Gathering. Her smiling face will be sadly missed. (Women on Farms Gathering, 2001, pp. 20-21)
\nReferences
Women on Farms Gathering 1995a, The 6th Annual Women on Farms Gathering Proceedings, Swan Hill Women on Farms Gathering, Swan Hill, Victoria, p. 5
Women on Farms Gathering 1995b, The 6th Annual Women on Farms Gathering, April 28th, 29th & 30th, Swan Hill Women on Farms Gathering, Swan Hill, Victoria, p.14
Women on Farms Gathering 1998a, 9th Annual Women on Farms Gathering Proceedings Handbook, Friday 27th to Sunday 29th March, Ouyen Women on Farms Gathering, Ouyen, Victoria, pp.7, 9
Women on Farms Gathering 1998b, Weekend Handbook, 27-29 March 1998, Ouyen, North West Victoria, Ouyen Women on Farms Gathering, Ouyen, Victoria, p.3
Women on Farms Gathering 1999, Tenth Annual Women on Farms Gathering Proceedings, 30th April to 2nd May, Warragul Women on Farms Gathering, Warragul, Victoria, p.36
Women on Farms Gathering 2001, 12th Annual Victorian Women on Farms Gathering Proceedings, 20th, 21st and 22nd of April, Beechworth, North East Victoria, North East Women on Farms Gathering, Beechworth, Victoria, pp.20-21
Trooper George Simpson Millar was born in 1892 to Thomas Glass Millar and Annie Noble Simpson. He went to Geelong Grammar, but moved to Brisbane Grammar after his family relocated to Brisbane. During his time at these schools he served as a cadet. He and his sister were frequently mentioned in the Brisbane Society columns, holding parties at their home 'Nowranie'. There is a photo in the collection of Nancie in a swimsuit (MM 050491) and there is a newspaper clipping with her wedding notice.
\nIn October 1914, when Millar was 23 years old, he enlisted with the Australian Imperial Forces and was assigned to the 5th Light Horse Regiment, C Squadron. Millar left Australia for Egypt in December 1914 on the HMAT Persic.
\nThe Regiment arrived in Egypt in January 1915 and moved to el-Ma'adi (Meadi) Camp on 2 February 1915. The 5th Light Horse Regiment was billeted at the el-Ma'adi (Meadi) camp until 14 May 1915, when the regiment left for Gallipoli. At Gallipoli George Simpson Millar served as a stretcher-bearer and was described by his fellow soldier Harry Hammond (photographed in MM 050451) as \"A chap called George Miller [sic], who was always on the make, telling other people what to do without knowing himself\" (memoirs of Harry Hammond). He remained in Gallipoli until August, when he suffered scalded hands and was shipped out on the SS Caledonia to England.
\nIn November 1915 Trooper Millar was granted a provisional discharge to take up a commission as a Second Lieutenant with the Royal Field Artillery, Special Reserve in the British Army. Millar served with the Royal Field Artillery for 2 1/2 years before re-enlisting as a Lieutenant with the Australian Imperial Force in January 1918.
\nFollowing his re-enlistment in the AIF Millar was assigned to the 5th Divisional Artillery which served in France, before suffering from asthma and being 'invalided out' to England in August 1918. He returned to Australia in December 1918 on board the Saxon and was discharged in 1919.
\nIn recognition of his services George Millar received the 1914-15 Star and the British War Medal. George Simpson Millar died in Grafton, NSW in 1973.
\nTrooper Millar appears in images MM 050527; MM 050528; MM 050530; MM 050533; MM 050541; MM 050554; MM 050555, MM 107499, MM 05035, MM 050437, MM 050427, MM 050434, MM 050463 and MM 050487.
\nReferences:
\nThe AIF Project
Ancestry.com
Australian War Memorial
The National Archives of Australia
NSW Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages
Trove http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/19546555 http://trove.nla.gov.au/ndp/del/article/23594832
Harry Hammond's memoirs Australian War Memorial: PR01775
WHITE-HEADED OSPREY
\nGeographical Distribution - Australia coast in general and Tasmania; also New Guinea and Moluccas.
\nNest - A structure of great size, about four-feet high by the same dimension in breadth, built of sticks, with a shallow cavity lined with seaweed. Usual situation an inaccessible rock or island, but low timber near water is sometimes chosen.
\nEggs - Clutch, three to four; shapely or roundish oval in form; texture of shall, somewhat granulated, surface of soft appearance and usually lustreless; ground-colour, buffy or yellowish-white. In three examples of a splendid set taken from an aerie near the mouth of the Margaret River (W.A.), the markings are mostly large and bold blotches of rich, dark, purplish-brown, more numerous about the upper half of the egg, and forming a large confluent patch almost black on the apex; while the fourth egg is not so heavily blotched, the markings of pinkish-brown, intermingled with dull purple, being lighter and more evenly distributed over the surface; inside lining of the shell, when held up to the light, dull yellowish-green. Dimensions in inches: (1) 2.48 x 1.77, (2) 2.44 x 2.8, (3) 2.42 x 1.79, (4) 2.42 x 1.74.
\nObservations - The Osprey in maturity is somewhat like the Sea Eagle, with brownish coat and white underneath parts, but in the Osprey the white head is mottled with a few dark feathers and the chest with brown, cere lead-colour, bill black, feet bluish-white, and bright eyes of yellowish-orange. It is a smaller bird than the Sea Eagle, as the dimensions show - Length, 21 to 24 inches; wing, 19 inches; tail, 8 ½ inches.
\nMy only experiences with this expert Fishing Hawk were in Western Australia. With departing daylight we arrive at Wallcliffe, the homestead of Mr. A. J. Bussell, on the Margaret River. By kind invitation we remain here a day, and I improve the occasion by exploring for objects of interest, and am not disappointed. I learn there is a Fish Hawk or Osprey's nest a mile or so up the coast. Ah! Methinks, what a rare subject for the camera. Good-naturedly Mr. Bussell promises to pilot Mr. Mansfield and myself to the aerie in the morning, and at the time appointed away we go joyfully. We are suddenly confronted by the broad stream, seventy or eighty yards across, of the Margaret River. 'How are we to cross, Bussell?' I inquire. 'Wade, of course,' was the reply. 'May I ask is it deep?' 'Only up to your armpits,' was the anything but reassuring answer, and now occurred to me the reason of Mr. Bussell's thrusting a towel into his coat pocket before leaving the house. However, there was no help for it. Bussell soon led the way with his undergarments gathered under one arm, his boots in his teeth, and his unmentionables held high in the air with the other hand. When Mansfield, who is shorter in stature, reaches the centre of the stream, there is scarcely anything visible except his broad-brimmed straw hat of sombrero proportions. Oh, if I only had my camera on shore, instead of upon my head, with these cooling waters lapping around my ribs, what a comical picture I might have taken of the pair, I thought. We are soon dressed, and tearing over scrubby sandhills, reaching the ocean just in time to see the steamer South Australian rolling by on a heavy swell. We round a sharp corner, when Bussell suddenly exclaims, 'There's the Fish Hawk's nest!' Sure enough it was, and a very conspicuous object, built on a small isolated rock, with the birds posing near. Bussell, who was fuller of actions than words, commenced to 'peel off' again, and I quickly learnt there was to be another Margaret River episode, as the blue waters rolled between the rocky aerie and the land. But the thought of a successful photograph, and perchance a clutch of rare eggs, are too much when laid in the balance with temporary discomforture, so I am soon semi-clad, following my guide with uncertain gait over the sharply-pinnacled reefs. Fortunately, the tide is low. Breathless we reach the aerie, which is only tenanted by fledglings. The camera is quickly adjusted, the tripod resting amongst brittle saltbush, where young gulls were hiding. While Bussell examines the young Ospreys, the drop-shutter descends, and he is immortalised. The illustration give a capital idea of the nest, with the mainland as a background. The nest, with slightly hollowed top, is about 4 feet high, with a circumference of about 13 feet, constructed of sticks and roots, and situated about twenty-five feet above high-water mark. The old brids now circling on high, where their white heads are just distinguishable from their dusky body against the azure sky, are uttering piercing cries of solicitude for the safety of their helpless offspring below.
\nThe exact date of the foregoing was the 5th November, 1889. Mr. Bussell compen-sated for my disappointment at finding only young by presenting me with a full clutch of the unusual number of four eggs that he had removed from the Osprey's aerie the previous season.
\nOn 21st December I examined another Osprey's aerie containing fully-fledged young on Direction Rock or Byers Island, off Rottnest Island. The nest was at one end of the rock, while the other end was occupied by scores of handsome Crested Terns (Sterna bergii), all prosecuting their task of incubation, perfectly fearless of their large rap-torial friends. I thought this somewhat remarkable, for, dearly as the Osprey loves fish, it is by now means adverse to fowl. Time did not permit of my visiting another aerie which was reported to me on Rottnest Island, but we possess good Gilbert's record of measuring one there fifteen feet in circumference.
\nReferences
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, p.140.
SATIN BOWER BIRD (Ptilonorhynchus Violaceus, Veillot - 276)
\nGeographical Distribution - Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria.\n
Nest - Open, shallow; somewhat loosely constructed of twigs; lined inside with leaves (Eucalyptus) and placed in a scrubby bush or tree, at a height varying from about ten to thirty feet from the ground. Dimensions over all, diameter 7 or 8 inches by 5 inches in depth. (See illustration).
\nEggs - Clutch, two to three; shape true oval; shell moderately fine in texture; surface glossy; colour varies from dark-cream to dirty-yellow, irregularly blotched and spotted with umber, cinnamon-brown, and a few purplish markings. In some specimens the blotches are very bold, with the markings under the surface of the shell of a bluish-black shade. Occasionally there is a type with a lighter or paler coloured ground and smaller-sized markings. Others again have the markings more in the form of hieroglyphics. Dimensions in inches of a typical clutch: (1) 1.76 x 1.l9, (2) 1.74 x 1.17. (Plate 9). Except for their larger size, the eggs in colour and character much resemble those of the Oriole (Mimeta viridis).
\nObservations - the male is especially beautiful by reason of his lustrous blue-black coat and lovely violet eyes, is an inhabitant of the forests, more particularly of the coastal region, of Eastern Australia, from Northern Queensland down to the Cape Otway forest, Victoria.
\nSome seasons Satin Birds are very destructive in the gardens and orchards, eating clover, especially the flowers, English grass, cabbages down to the very root, and fruit. The late W. B. Bailey, Pimpama Nurseries, South Queensland, informed me of an instance in which he had about three acres of mandarin oranges stripped in a week. The birds are also fond of sweet potato tubers. I noticed at Mr. Bailey's residence a very handsome male bird which he had in captivity. It was in its youthful coat of mottled-green when he first obtained it. It is interesting to learn that this bird did not don its full livery of blue-black till the fourth year.* The bird was an excellent mimic, could talk, and imitate well the meowing of a cat.
\nIt is somewhat remarkable that, notwithstanding the Satin Birds are plentiful locally, the eggs are exceedingly rare in collections. On the 23rd November, 1883, my friend Mr. Lindsay Clark found, near the Bass River, Western Port, a nest of the Satin Bird containing a rare prize: a pair of fresh eggs. Mr. Clark described the nest as being placed about twelve feet from the ground, in a scrubby bush, loosely constructed of twigs, &c., and lined with leaves; on being removed from its position it fell to pieces.\nA most remarkable instance, and one fortunate for myself, happened the following season. Mr. Clark went Mutton Bird (Puffinus tenuirostris) egging on Phillip Island, when it occurred to him to visit the mainland again in the neighbourhood of his Satin Bird's nest of the previous season. The result was that he found another pair of eggs, which are now in my collection.
\nI never enjoyed the opportunity of taking a nest of the Satin Bird, but at Christmas-tide, 1884, I saw a perfect bower on the north shore of Lake King, Gippsland. The structure was situated in a cleared space upon the ground, amongst some bracken in open forest. The cleared space was twenty-six inches across, the bower or avenue being in the centre of this space. The two parallel tapering walls of twigs were about twelve inches high, by a breadth of ten inches, and were six inches apart. The walls were somewhat curved, arching towards the top. The chief decorations within the bower, and round about, were the gay feathers of the Crimson Parrakeet (Platycercus elegans).
\nIt is stated that the first bower of the Satin Bird that Gould saw was in the Sydney Museum. He succeeded in conveying it to England. The illustration I have given is from a picture by Mr. D. Le Souëf, taken at Mallacoota Inlet.
\nThe Satin Bird's eggs which Dr. Ramsay described in the Proceedings of the Zoological Society (1875) were of an abnormal type, if referable to that bird at all, hence his excuse for redescribing (and rightly so) two well-authenticated sets collected by Mr. Ralph Hargrave, at Wattamola, New South Wales. Dr. A. E. Cox, Sydney, informed me that about the middle of October, 1876, at Mittagong, New South Wales, he found a nest of the Satin Bird situated on the tope of a tea-tree (Melaleuca) stump, containing two eggs which were nearly incubated.
\nFrom Mr. K. Broadbent's interesting articles on the 'Cardwell Birds', I take this extract: - 'The Satin Bower Bird (ptilonorhynchus violaceus) was observed at the Herbert River Gorge, and quite commonly in the Herberton scrubs. In the latter locality it occurred in company with the Spotted Cat Bird (Ælurodus maculosus), and the Tooth-billed Bower Bird (Tectonornis dentirostris), and Newton's Bower Bird (Prionodura newtoniana); in fact I have seen all these four species feeding in the same tree. These Satin Birds, as they are more popularly designated, may be often met with during the month of May in the open, along the edges of the scrubs, feeding upon the tops of young ferns. I have seen flocks of two hundred or more, composed in large proportions of plain-coloured mottled birds, with about ten or twelve dark or deep blue-coloured individuals amongst them.'
\nRegarding this Bower Bird in Southern Queensland, I take from Mr. Hermann Lau's MS the following:- 'Satin Bird - The sea-coast scrubs are its haunts. Now and again it comes out to the open forest to feed upon the berries of the mistletoe, or on the figs in the gardens. Its agreeable note is a clear whistle from tenor down to bass. While the male bird is clad in a beautiful shining coat of dark-blue, with eyes and base of bill to match, the female has only a simple (olive-green) attire. The females, with probably immature males, have been seen in flocks far from their summer abode.'
\n'Before nesting begins, the birds build up a play-ground (bower). The finest bowers are nearly in all cases on the sunny side of a lying log, the ground being strewn with moss, flowers, yellow and blue Lory Parrots' feathers, small bones, and snail-houses, for about a yard in diameter. In the middle is erected a bower about eighteen inches in height. When completed, several birds of both sexes run round and through the archway or avenue, picking up, in their joy, some of the nesting (? bower) materials and tossing them about, and we may guess, in their own way, choose partners.
\n'As I was watching one day at Cunningham Gap, a fine male bird with a withered fig-leaf in its bill, turning it over, became a prey to me. Half a mile away from the spot I found the nest (but no eggs) ten feet from the ground, in a small scrub tree. The nest was made of dry sticks, and lined with dry leaves, and was rather shallow. Later, when residing in the Bunya Mountains, I had the satisfaction of getting again a nest with two eggs (usual complement), ten feet from the ground.' Date, January, 1887.
\nI conclude with a brief account of a successful nesting outing that Mr. S. W. Jackson enjoyed amongst these fascinating birds. The notes, which Mr. Jackson was kind enough to write specially for me, are as follow: -
\nOn December 23rd, 1896, I started from South Grafton and proceeded on my bicycle towards Cloud's Creek, some fifty-nine miles distant, in hopes of finding some good eggs in the scrubs in those parts. However, on reaching my destination, after a good day's riding on my machine, which was heavily loaded with tent, camera, rations, &c., I pitched my camp, and afterwards had a stroll among the oak trees (two species of Casuarina). In answer to the cries or calls of the Satin Bower Bird, I walked about fifty yards from my camp, and was forced to stop at an oak tree, my notice being called to a female Bower Bird which flushed out from a cluster of mistletoe, which contained three fresh eggs. The nest was constructed of similar material, &c., to that of the Black-throated Butcher Bird (Cracticus nigrigularis), only lined with leaves of the spotted eucalyptus instead of small twigs.
\nI carefully emptied the nest of its contents, but unfortunately the nest could not be removed, on account of the sticks of the same being so intermingles with the twigs of the mistletoe, the latter growing on a very thick limb. After making further searches, I succeeded in finding nine more nests, all of which were built in oak trees, and in same position as the first nest found, with the exception that four of them were built in the upright forks of the oaks, and not in the mistletoe as the remaining six were. In the nine nests found there were eggs in four of them, out of which I got one fresh set of two, and a few addled eggs, the balance of the eggs being too far advanced in incubation to be blown. The remaining five nests all contained young birds, covered with down, and in one nest I found one young bird possessing four legs, and I regret I did not keep the curiosity, instead of placing it back into the nest.
\n'In all, I only procured seven eggs, which varied much in size and colour. Out of the ten nests found, the following is the detailed result: -
\n1 nest contained set of 3 eggs (fresh)
\n1 nest contained set of 2 eggs (almost fresh)
\n1 nest contained set of 1 egg (addled) and 1 bird
\n4 nests contained set of 3 young birds each
\n2 nests contained set of 2 eggs each (heavily incubated)
\n1 nest contained set of 3 eggs (1 addled, 2 heavily incubated)
\n
'The majority of the nests were one hundred or two hundred yards apart, at an elevation of about twenty to thirty feet, and mostly placed near the trunk of the tree, just where the smaller twigs branch off near the topmost part. The birds were very tame, and allowed their nests to be robbed without attempting to attack the intruder.
\n'I spent four days by myself in this wild bush, away from civilisation, and tried my best to find more nests of the Bower Bird, but only succeeded in finding two old nests (perhaps last season's).
\n'While I was busily climbing up to one of the Satin Bird's nests, and when nearing the same, I got rather an unexpected shock at finding an iguana (a reptile about three or four feet long) eating, or starting to eat, one of the heavily incubated eggs. The ugly creature, in it sudden amazement, jumped on my head, and then descended to the ground. The feeling to me was very unpleasant, and of rather a rare nature.'
\nThe breeding months extend from October to January.
\n----------------------------------- \n* Since this statement was published in the Proceedings of the Royal Physical Society (Edinburgh), Mr. A. A. C. Le Souëf, Director of the Zoological Gardens, Melbourne, has kindly favoured me with the following: - 'I think this par-ticular bird must have been of mature years when Mr. Bailey first got it, as many years ago I caged a number (at least a dozen) of these birds at the gardens here, young green birds, caught at Gembrook, and it was only after the expiration of nearly eight years they began to change colour. I think four or five birds put on the beautiful blue-black plumage, and in a year or two died off. It is, therefore, evident that the birds only come to their full plumage in old age, and that accounts for the fact that in a flock of say one hundred birds, which we often used to see at Gembrook, some years ago, there would be only a very few, hot half-a-dozen black ones among them. They die off shortly after the change.'
\n# Mr. I. W. De Lany informs me that he has only noticed blue feathers at bowers. His wife, by way of experiment, put out several pieces of coloured wools near the house, and only the blue ones were taken to the bower.
\nResources
\nTranscribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 191-195.
WHITE-WINGED CHOUGH - Corcorax Melanorhamphus, Veillot (298)
\nGeographical Distribution - Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
\nNest - Large, bowl shaped, composed of coarse cemented mud scantily lined inside with matted stringy-bark, grass, and sometimes with fur and feathers, and conspicuously placed on any convenient horizontal limb of a tree in open forest or belt of timber. (See illustrations.) Dimensions over all of an average nest, 8 ½ inches by 6 ½ inches in depth; egg cavity 7 inches across by 3 inches deep.
\nEggs - Clutch, five to seven usually, eight or more occasionally; inclined to be elliptical in shape; texture of shell comparatively strong, with glossy surface; colour, whitish or light yellowish-white, moderately but boldly blotched with irregular-sized patches of olive-brown and dull-slate, the latter colour underlying the surface of the shell. Dimensions in inches of a pair from an incomplete clutch of three taken near Pyramid Hill, Victoria, 6th October, 1884: (1) 1.58 x 1.11, (2) 1.53 x 1.11; of a proper clutch of five eggs (seven birds to the family) taken near the Murray, Riverina, 5th November, 1892: (1) 1.64 x 1.14, (2) 1.53 x 1.14, (3) 1.56 x1.14, (4) 1.51 x 1.10, (5) 1.41 x 1.12. (Plate 5.)\n
Observations - There is much of interest surrounding the Corcorax. Not only is the bird a unique or anomalous kind, but as a common forest species throughout the greater part of Australia, little is under-stood of its natural habits. Its total length is given at 16 to 19 inches; wing, 10 inches; tail, 9 inches; a somewhat slender bill is 1 ¾ inches, while the black plumage with its glossy-green reflections is set off with scarlet eyes. All our native birds are more or less infested with vermin. Some specimens of the Chough are very repulsive in this respect.
\nGould says the Chough occurs in small troops of from six to ten in number. During a recent inland excursion, I was careful to count the individuals of various families, which numbered respectively six, seven, seven and six. On another occasion I was present at the taking of a nest, where seven birds appeared in a very excited manner. Of course there may be larger flocks when augmented by the season's young. Mr. Chas McLennan witnessed in the Mallee, one autumn, a large flock of over 100 Choughs. The great naturalist also says, 'It has often struck me that more than one female deposits her egg in the same nest, as four or five females may be frequently seen either on the same or neighbouring trees, while only one nest is to be found.'
\nMr. A. J. North writes, 'As many as eight eggs have been taken from one nest. It would appear therefore that more than one bird lays in a single nest. It is well known that often more than one pair of birds assists in the construction of one nest.'
\nHowever, I think the actual proving of the interesting fact rests with my friend, Mr. Hermann Lau. Let his own words attest. 'The Black Magpie (Corcorax) is gregarious, living in small troops of from five to fifteen, and is dispersed all over the Downs (Darling). Together they commence building one nest, its material being simply mud mixed with dry grass, and often here and there I have found pebbles the size of a marble embedded. If the soil from which the stuff is taken is black, as on the plainy Downs, the nest shows that colour; on the other hand, if of a loamy character, as at Warroo and vicinity, the colour is lighter. The lining consists in the first-named case of dry grass and in the second mostly of opossum hair, on which five or six eggs rest. The whole company attend to one nest, as I have proved, shooting two birds from the nest, and seeing a third sitting the next day. As soon as the young are hatched, another nest gets built, and so on until Christmas (commencing in September), so that three broods may be expected. At Warroo, September, 1879, I sent my black man up a tree to fetch me a nest, with the complement of eggs. The nest weighted 7 ¾ lbs.'
\nWith regard to the nesting of the Chough, there still remains two important points to be settled: - What is the proportion of male and female birds to one family or nest? and, Do the females lay each one or more eggs?
\nAn exceedingly large nest of this remarkable species taken in the Swan Hill district, 1893, by Mr. Robert Hall, of the Field Naturalists' Club, weighed no less than 9 lbs. 6 ozs.
\nIt may not be generally known that the Chough is, at seasons, a nuisance to farmers. A correspondent in the Mangalore district, Victoria, informs me these birds give some trouble in the newly-sown fields by pulling up grain just as it is germinating.
\nBreeding months are August to December.
\nResources
\nTranscribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. Transcribed from pages 65-66.
Boobook Owl
\nGeographical Distribution - Australia and Tasmania, also Lord Howe Island.
\nNest - Usually a hollow spout or limb of a tree, dead or living, the eggs being deposited on the decayed wood-dust within.
\nEggs - Clutch, three, occasionally four; nearly round, compressed slightly at one end; texture somewhat coarse, with a few limy excresences on the surface which is slightly glossy and very minutely pitted; colour, white. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch: (1) 1.79 x 1.45, (2) 1.72 x 1.43, (3) 1.71 x 1.45.
\nObservations - The Boobook Owl is a rusty-coloured bird irregularly blotched with white. This nocturnal creature is undoubtedly the most common Owl in Australia., having been recorded from every district, and go where you will amongst timber you are almost sure to hear the familiar \"mo-poke,\" or, as the aboriginals more correctly imitate the bird's call, \"book-book,\" or \"buck-buck.\" I have heard it in the Dandenongs commence to call usually about three-quarters of an hour after sunset.
\nGreat has been the controversy whether this Owl or the Tawny-shouldered Frogmouth (Podargus) is in reality called the 'Mo-poke.' As far as I am concerned, it was settled long ago. One night we heard the unmistakable call repeatedly from a tall tree. Stealing up quietly, and having located the exact spot of the sound, a shot from one of our guns brought down a Boobook Owl. Moreover, in later years, during some of the pleasant camp-outs of a few enthusiastic field naturalists, we had additional proof as to the Owl calling 'mo-poke.' One of our members, who seemed possessed of a phenomenal throat, could imitate to the very sound the Boobook Owl, and when he could catch the bird's ear in the forest, by imitating it could always bring a bird into the tree overhead. I remember on one occasion we had a new member out with us who was anxious to procure a skin of the Owl. During the evening, our friend with the phenomenal throat got behind a tree at the rear of our tent and cleverly produced the Owl's call. 'Great Scot!' said our new member, 'a Boobook!' and seizing his gun rushed out of the tent. He continued to gaze up the tree where the supposed Owl was, till shouts of derisive laughter caused him to return.
\nOn the morning of the 11th of October, 1890, three of us were hastening over the she-oak (Casuarina) clad hills near Myrniong, on the Upper Werribee, Victoria, when one of us casually threw a stone against the limb. Then followed expeditiously the natural sequence - a climb, the chopping of a hole in the tough weather-beaten limb, and a clutch of three eggs is added to our collection. The situation of the eggs was about fifteen feet from the ground.
\nThe original eggs Gould described were taken on the 8th November, by his useful aboriginal companion, 'Natty.' The specimens were in a forward state of incubation. Mr. Wm. White (Adelaide), on two occasions on Kangaroo Island took four eggs of the Boobook Owl from deserted Ravens' nests. A curious place indeed for an Owl to deposit her eggs.
\nThe Boobook Owl can fly by day as well as by night; but it is not generally known that it sometimes takes its prey by day - at all events, in the subdued daylight of a thick forest. On one occasion Mr. G. A. Keartland, about two o'clock in the afternoon, in the Dandenongs, shot a Boobook in the act of devouring something which proved to be a freshly- captured Pilot Bird (Pycnoptilus).
\nThe usual breeding months are October, November, and December.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, p.43.
WHITE-BROWED BABBLER (Pomatorhinus Superciliosus - Vigors and Horsfield - 294)
\nGeographical Distribution - Australia in general.
\nNest - Similar to that of P. temporalis, but proportionally smaller; bulky, dome-shaped, with hooded side entrance; constructed of sticks; lined inside with such soft materials as portions of flowers, feathers, grass, bark and wool. Usually placed in a low tree or bush.
\nEggs - Clutch, three to five; stout oval, texture of shell fine; surface slightly glossy; colour, lightish grey, clouded with a dark colour and usually streaked with fine hair-like lines of dark-brown or sepia. Dimensions in inches of a pair: (1) .99 x .66, (2) .95 x .67; a smaller-sized set of three: .9 x .65 inches each. (Plate 11.)
\nObservations - This smaller-sized Babbler has a wider distribution than the common variety, being found in both Eastern and Western Australia.
\nLike its larger cousin, It may be seen, even in the same locality, seven or eight in a flock hopping over the ground like rats, pulling away at the short grass or levering over lumps of bark or sticks with its beak or head. When disturbed, with spread tail and wings, these birds leap actively from branch to branch through the trees, uttering chattering noises, but not quite so loudly as the Temporal or Common Babbler.
\nThe eggs of this species in my collection I took in the Mallee, end of October, 1884, - two nests, two or three respectively. The nests were lined with grass, fur and dry cattle manure.
\nMr. James G. McDougall informs me he has taken eggs of this species in South Australia, where it is in some places called the Kangaroo Bird, early in July.
\nGilbert observed in Western Australia that the breeding season commences in September, and continues during the three following months. The nest is usually constructed in a dead jam-tree (species of acacia), and it often happens that three or four pairs of birds build their nests in the same clump of trees.
\nLike the Temporal Babbler, the White-browed uses one of its nests as a sleeping place. At mid-winter I have witnessed a troupe filing into their dormitory at dusk.
\nBreeding months according to the season, from May to the end of the year.
\nReferences
Transcribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 272-273.
STRIATED FIELD WREN (Calamanthus Fuliginosus - Vigors and Horsfield - 237)
\nGeographical Distribution - New South Wales, South and West (?) Australia and Tasmania.
\nNest - Roundish in form, dome-shaped, with side entrance; outwardly constructed of dark, dead herbage, grass, leaves, etc., mixed with moss, then a good ply of fine, dead grass, lined inside with feathers, fur and hair. Usually placed on the ground or on the side of a bank, concealed in grass, rushes or the centre of a low bush. Dimension outwardly, 4 inches in breadth by 5 inches in length; entrance 1 ½ inches across. (See illustration.)
\nEggs - Clutch, three to four; roundish in form but much pointed at one end; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour, vinaceous-buff with a broad belt of reddish or purplish-brown round the apex, or with an indistinct patch of that colour on the apex. Some examples are more of a purplish tone, with cloudy markings, more or less, all over the surface. Dimensions in inches of a Tasmanian clutch: (1) 0.83 x 0.64, (2) 0.82 x 0.65, (3) 0.81 x 0.62; of a pair from the mainland: (1) 0.82 x 0.6, (2) 0.82 x 0.58. (Plate 11.)
\nObservations - This Wren-like bird, with its pretty warble, which seems to keep time to the movement of its erect tail, claimed my attention in Tasmania, where one nest was found on the ground in the centre of a low gorse bush.
\nThe Field Wren may be described as a striped bird, with a greenish wash on the upper surface, while the under parts have a brownish tinge. There is a distinctive white line over each eye. Length 4 ½ inches, wing 2 ½ inches, tail 2 1/8 inches, bill ½ inch, tarsus 7/8 inch.
\nSome Tasmanian collectors call the bird by the somewhat uneuphonious name of 'Stink Bird' or 'Stinker', because of its peculiar scent, which will cause sporting dogs sometime to 'set' the Bird.
\nI have noticed this same species on the mainland, notably at Mordialloc, Oakleigh and other places in Victoria. There are also undoubted examples of this bird in the National Museum, Melbourne, taken in the same colony.
\nMoreover, I have no doubt that the eggs procured on Coode Island, at the mouth of the Yarra, by Mr. A J. North, and described by him, are referable to this species and not to C. campestris. I procured, through my son, birds from the precise locality, and comparing them with the Tasmanian bird, can find no difference, except that the mainland bird is a trifle smaller (as a general rule, birds of a species found on the mainland are, I find, smaller than the same species from Tasmania).
\nMr. A. E. Brent has found nests of the Striated Field Wren with an admixture of seaweed in their construction, and placed just above high-water mark on the Derwent, Tasmania, a favourite locality being the railway embankment close to that river.
\nPresuming the Field Wren found on Coode Island is C. fuliginosus, Mr. North furnishes interesting details regarding it.
\nThe bird is one of our earliest breeders. Mr. North cites an instance when eggs were taken 24th of May. On the 17th June, 1880, he himself found four nests of this species, each containing three fresh eggs. He observes, 'The situation chosen for the nest is somewhat varied, sometimes being placed underneath a tuft of rank grass, but more often have I found it artfully concealed at the bottom of a low, stunted thick shrub growing in the wet and swampy ground at the mouth of the Yarra. The nest is rounded in form, composed of grasses and lined with feathers; the nests found at the mouth of the Yarra were all composed exteriorly of an aquatic weed. The bird at times sits very close. On one occasion, when the nest was built in the grass, the bird allowed itself to be trodden upon before leavings its eggs, which were in an advanced state of incubation.'
\nBreeding months, May or June (but generally August) to December or January.
\nResources
\nTranscribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 278-279
EMU WREN (Stipiturus Malchurus, Shaw - 201)
\nGeographical Distribution - South Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South and West Australia, and Tasmania.
\nNest - Oval in form (but that part which might be termed the true nest is perfectly round) placed on its side; the mouth very large (comparatively), taking up the whole of the upper part of the front. It is very shallow, so much so that if tilted slightly the eggs would roll out, they being almost upon a level with its edge. It is outwardly composed of grass and the young dry shoots of reeds; lined with fine grass, roots, and finally a very fine green moss. Very loosely put together, and requires to be moved very gently to prevent it from falling to pieces (Ramsay). Another example is oval, broadest at the base, with side entrance near the top; well built of grass, lycopodium, &c., with a few spiders' cocoons on the outside; inside lined with fine grass, &c.; usual situation, about a foot from the ground, in thick, short scrub. Dimensions: length, 4 ½ inches; breadth 3 inches; entrance, 1 inch across.
\nEggs - Clutch, three, occasionally four; lengthened-oval in form; texture very fine; surface glossy; colour, pearly-white, spotted all over (like those of the Blue Wren, Malurus cyaneus, only redder), but sometimes with a large patch on the apex, and very few markings elsewhere, of rich reddish-chestnut. Eggs large compared with the size of the bird. Dimensions in inches of two pairs: A (1) .7 x .49, (2) .67 x .48; B (1) .67 x .54, (2) .66 x .49. (Plate 10.)
\nObservations - This remarkable little bird enjoys a somewhat extensive habitat, seeing it is found in favoured localities from Southern Queensland round to South-west Australia.
\nThe Emu Wren is by no means a scarce bird, but as it frequents dense grass beds and rushes of low swampy districts, its nest is rarely discovered. I have looked for it in vain in places where I have observed the birds. When out with a party of field naturalists on 9th November, 1884, we came across young which apparently had just left the nest.
\nGould found a nest containing three newly-hatched young in the neighbourhood of Recherche Bay, Tasmania. The nest, which he described as a small ball-shaped structure with rather a large opening on one side, was composed of grasses, lined with feathers, and artfully concealed in a tuft of grass.
\nDr. Ramsay gives an interesting account of the finding of his first nest. He says: - 'I had for many days visited the swamps upon Long Island, where these birds are very plentiful, in hopes of finding them breeding, but it was not until the 25th September, 1861, that I succeeded in discovering a nest, although I had watched them for hours together for several days. While walking along the edge of the swamp, however, this day, I was agreeably surprised by disturbing a female, which flew from my feet out of an overhanging tuft of grass growing only a few yards from the water's edge. Upon lifting up the leaves of the grass, which had been bent down by the wind, I found its nest carefully concealed near the roots, and containing three eggs. As the bird did not fly far, but remained close by a small swamp-oak (Casuarina), I had a good opportunity of satisfying myself that it was the veritable Emu Wren. The eggs were, of course, quite warm, and within a few days of being hatched; this may account for the bird being so unwilling to leave the spot; for when I returned about five minutes afterwards the female was perched upon the same tuft of grass, and within a few inches from where I had taken the nest.'
\nMr. G. E. Shepherd, Somerville, read some very interesting remarks on the 'Nidification of the Emu Wren' before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 14th December, 1897. He stated: - 'In the first place I may say that the birds are far from rare, though the eggs are exceedingly so - a fact, no doubt, due to the extreme difficulty experienced in finding the nest. In October, 1892, I found my first nest in the following curious manner. I had noticed a White Egret flying along the edge of the tide on the shore of Western Port Bay, and being anxious to secure the bird, a commenced stalking through the scrub fringing the fore-shore. Whilst so engaged I flushed an Emu Wren from a thick salonica bush, and dis-covered the nest, situated in the thickest part of the foliage, and containing three eggs, which were nearly hatched. Possessed of the knowledge thus obtained, I made repeated and persistent efforts to again find a nest, but without success until September, 1895, on the 14th of which month I succeeded in finding a nest containing two fresh eggs. This nest I also found accidentally through riding across a shallow swamp fringed with stunted tea-tree, from amongst which I saw the bird flutter, and after a short search discovered the nest. Two days afterwards I discovered another net in a patch of thick, low scrub. In this instance three eggs were taken, somewhat incubated, one of which broke when being blown.
\n'Owing to the absence of bush fires last summer the birds were more numerous this spring than for some years, hence I devoted all my spare time during the latter part of September and the whole of October to searching for their nests. On the 26th September I found a nest, in which were three eggs slightly incubated. The nest was placed at a height of eighteen inches from the ground among low dense scrub in a swampy locality. On the same date I also discovered the nest exhibited tonight, which the birds deserted, probably owing to my disturbing their nesting operations, as I saw the female within a few feet of the nest. This nest I have brought with as much surroundings as possible, and it will, I think, enable all interested to get a fairly good idea of the situations favoured by these birds for nesting. In this instance a space of two feet separated the nest from the ground, and in every instance coming under my notice the nests are situated among scrub, thick, low, and dense, and matted together with the wiry creeper as in the case of the nest exhibited. I subsequently found one nest and three fresh eggs; also, two nests, containing three and four eggs respectively, both the latter sets being nearly hatched; besides two others containing young birds.
\n'As all the nests were a considerable distance from my home, I had no opportunity of watching them for more than a brief period, which, however, enabled me to observe the female return to the nest on two occasions, and take her place upon the eggs. This she apparently does by 'backing' into the nest, hence her long tail sticks outward through the entrance and over her head, a conclusion forced upon me (even without the necessity of eye-witnessing) from the extreme length of the tail and size and shape of the nest. The eggs are somewhat large for the bird, and, like many other species, differ considerably in their markings. Nearly all those taken by me may be likened to the eggs of Malurus cyaneus, but some-what smaller. The nest is much more compact than the Blue Wren's, smaller, and much better finished, besides being more artfully concealed. As Gould has truly remarked, the bird's powers of flight are but feeble; hence it depends mainly upon its wonderful activity upon the ground as a means of escape from danger, and the dense undergrowth found in the localities it frequents.'
\nI have used Dr. Ramsay's description of the nest, and also have given the description of a typical nest which was kindly presented to me by Mr. Shepherd. The Western Port example is decidedly compact and well-built, and most resembles that of a Tit (Acanthiza). I have every confidence in Mr. Shepherd's identification. I have since been in the field with him, when he showed me similar nests built by Emu Wrens, one of which, by the way, contained an egg of the Narrow-tailed Bronze Cuckoo.
\nBreeding months September and probably to the end of the year.
\nThe illustration of the 'Emu Wren's Nest' is taken from one situated near a bit of leptospermum scrub.
\nReferences
Transcribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 214-217
GROUND THRUSH (Geocichla Lunulata, Latham)
Geographical Distribution - New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
Nest - Large, open, beautiful; outwardly composted of green moss, dried leaves, grass, etc., matted together with earth or sand; lined inside with a thick ply of grass, sometimes with pieces of rushes and rootlets added. Usually situated on a thick limb or fork of a coastal tea-tree (Leptospermum) or banksia, in a swamp tea-tree (Melaleuca) by a creek, or in a mossy musk or other tree in the mountains, but always sheltered by thick scrub. Dimensions over all, 8 to 10 inches by 5 or 6 inches in depth; egg cavity, 2 ¾ inches across by 2 inches deep.
Eggs - Clutch, two to three; true oval in form; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour, light warmish-grey, spotted and blotched, usually all over, with reddish or rufous-brown, intermingled with cloud-like markings of dull-red. Dimensions in inches of proper clutches: A (1) 1.33 x .9, (2) 1.32 x .92, (3) 1.31 x .92; B (1) 1.29 x .87, (2) 1.28 x .86, (3) 1.24 x .86. (Plate 9).
Observations - The true home of this lovable bird is the great forest region and coastal scrubs of South-East Australia.
My associations with the Mountain Thrush, or more strictly speaking, Ground Thrush, have been for the most part, of the pleasant and interesting kind; therefore if I have wandered too much into detail in giving my observations on this bird, please skip, and put it down to excessive enthusiasm on my part.
\nThe bird may be called Mountain, for it is a lover of the fern gullies and musk-tree thickets of the hilly tracts. But is has been in the tea-tree groves of the coast where I have most cultivated its acquaintance. On the eastern shore of Port Phillip, after passing St. Kilda, patches of tea-tree (Leptospermum), greater or smaller in extent, occur at intervals until Mordialloc is reached. Here density commences in real earnest, and constitues an almost unbroken margin to the eastern portion of the bay. In this dense brush, if carefully sought for, may be seen the Ground Thrush - a timid, modest creature - 'at home'. In October this great belt of living Leptospermum is a mass of white flowers, so dense that in some sheltered nooks the warm grey foliage and seed cups are barely visible. The aroma from the flowers is like the perfume of new honey.
\nLovers of nature, poets, and others, in all lands, usually connect the wedding garment of spring with the nesting of birds. And so it is, as a rule; but the nesting of the Ground Thrush is one of the interesting, but not altogether unique exceptions among our Australian birds. In the bleak and frosty months like July, the Ground Thrush commences to construct its nest, or re-build by making additions to a former home. In cases where nests are used by the bird's season after season, they become a goodly size, and the foundations have a venerable, moss-grown appearance. Some of these favourite old homes measure a foot across, while the actual cup of the nest would only measure half that dimension by two or three inches deep.
\nA favourite situation for the nest is about twelve feet from the ground in the fork of an upright tree, in the centre of a thick clump of scrub, growing in a hollow or dip between the ancient sand drifts, where about the base of the trees is scattered dead and decaying timber among dwarf and sparingly-grown bracken. Another favourite locality for a nest is on a sand rise, about twenty paces from the high-water mark, the nest being placed on a thick horizontal branch hidden with thick foliage; or another site is a darkened spot where the taller tea-tree tops meet overhead, together with the closely-packed, twiggy, lichen-covered stems, to quitely subdue the light below. Another nest may be humbly situated within read of hand. Yet again a secure resting-place for a nest may be chosen on a rough bulky limb of a banksia tree, if well protected with crowded tea-tree scrub. The nests are perfect models of bird architecture, beautify proportioned and tastefully decorated with verdant moss - fit subjects for pictures (see illustration). The eggs also are gems for beauty, being of a delicate light-green, mottled with purplish-red. A triplet of eggs may be found once in every two or three nests, the balance being in pairs.
\nAs stated, the eggs are generally deposited in winter. One wonders how it is possible for the little naked young to survive the raw months. But let a person enter these dense tea-tree scrubs, and he will be astonished at the mildness of the atmosphere there, for the density of the timber and foliage seems to exclude the keenest wind, and neither does the frost harden the ground. Sometimes the earliest birds lay about the end of June; a few during July. Perhaps about one-fifth of the young are hatched by the end of that month; but from the first to the middle of August the majority of the birds lay. Although the Ground Thrush is such an early breeder there are exceptions, as with other rules, in its case. Once in the middle of September I saw a nest with three eggs, supposed to be a second clutch or birds previously robbed in the locality, although I do not think they all lay a second time during the season if their nest is interfered with. Mr. J. Gabriel furnished me with two authenticated notes of late nests with eggs, seen in the Dandenongs. One was towards the end of November, the other the 20th of December. I also leant of another nest having been taken on the 9th of November, 1893, at Dandenong Creek.
\nIn the young, feathers soon succeed down, and from the nest they assume the same coloured garb as their parents, the prevailing colour of which is olive-brown, darkest on the back and much lighter on the breast and flanks. With the exception of the wings, tail, and centre of the abdomen, each feather has a lunar or moon-shaped mark of black at the tip; hence the specific name, lunulata. The beak and feet are horn-coloured, the former yellowish at the gape. The dark-brown eyes are full of meek expression. In fact, the bird's whole contour is captivating, more especially when seen with neck shortened on its moss-bedecked nest, or standing with partly drooping wings over its helpless fledglings.
\nWith other persons, including Gould, I used to fancy the one drawback in the nature of the Mountain or Ground Thrush was that it was dumb, save a few squeaky notes uttered when alarmed, or when the young was approached, when the bird hurried and flopped over the ground through the scrub, and at the feet of the intruder, making a feeble but sustained hissing whistle. But since, I have learned this Thrush is really a songster, which especially loves to sing 'betwixt the lights' after the sun has gone down. Then the Thrush may be heard in a modest, subdued whistling song, as it whiles away the interval of twilight. The music is interspersed with portions of song not unlike that of the English Thrush, but without the full impassioned notes, being a melodious whistle of chiefly two notes, a slide about a third from one to the other, with trills and variations. Sometimes the bird sings at dawn.
\nLike most true Thrushes, the Ground Thrush loves to feed upon molluscs, but it is not averse to worms. A field observer told me how he once watched a bird gathering worms, presumably for its young. Pulling a worm out of the ground, the bird would hop silently about with the twisting captive in its bill until another was discovered. Dropping No. 1, No. 2 was hauled from its hole, then No. 1 was again picked up and No. 3 prospected for; and so on, the bird laying down its mouthful each time a fresh capture was to be made, until it had difficulty in keeping together about half-dozen wriggling worms. It would finally fly away with the lot.
\nThe greatest season I experienced amongst the Ground Thrushes was in 1886. The following are my field notes:
31st July - Nest in upright tree, fairly thick scrub, in a dip with bracken, dead and decaying logs about. Eggs, two.
14th August - Nest in thick stumpy tree, dense scrub and undergrowth on sandy rise. Eggs, two.
14th August - Nest in stunted tree, dense small scrub on sandy rise near the beach. Eggs, two.
14th August - Among very thick lichen-covered trees near the beach, several growing from one root. Nest on overhanging prong, moss plentiful on ground underneath, springing through the dead tea-tree leaves. Eggs, three.
14th August - In straight tree amongst a clump. Nest on underneath limb. Large banksia near tree. Eggs, two.
14th August - In more open but clumpy scrub with thick grass about. Nest eight feet from ground. Eggs, two.
14th August - In overhanging tree in comparatively open scrub; beautiful nest, perfect in shape, edged with pretty moss. Eggs, three.
All the foregoing nests were found after three hours toiling in and out of a belt of scrub about half-a-mile in extent. The nests varied in height from six to twelve feet above the ground, and with the exception of No. 1, were all found building on the 31st July.
Giving the Thrushes a season's rest, I visited my favourit locality again in 1888. Result:
4th August - Saw fledged young flying with their parents.
4th August - Saw nest building; completed apparently on the 11th, when I took eggs (three), which were slightly incubated.
4th August - Nest in thick low tree. Three eggs partly incubated.
11th August - Nest on overhanging limb. Eggs, three, fresh.
11th August - Saw a nest in overhanging tree, containing three young which were flesh-coloured, with dark or black stripes along centre of back and down wings, with tufts of yellowish down. Birds probably fourteen days old.
All the above nests were in tea-trees.
15th September - Saw Ground Thrush's nest with three eggs. Supposed to be second clutch of birds previously robbed. Heard some birds whistling melodiously at 6.15 p.m., or about twenty-five minutes after sun-down.
Season 1889:
10th August - Two nests with young about ten days old. Two building in banksias, and a third with one egg. These contained three eggs each on the 24th.
Season 1890:
2nd August - (1) Visited nest from which I took eggs previous year; contained three fully-fledged young. (2) Found another old nest being renovated; fortnight afterwards contained two eggs. (3) Nest with two fresh eggs. (4) Nest with foundation laid. (5) Nest with two eggs slightly incubated. (6) Nest destroyed by some enemy - bird or beast; one egg remaining. (7) An old nest examined; it contained two eggs on the 16th. I heard birds whistling as the sun was setting.
All these nests were in tea-tree, except No. 5, which was in a banksia.
After another year's respite the haunts of the Ground Thrush were again invaded in 1892 by a party, including Messrs. Le Souëf (three), Mr. R. S. Rogers, my son, and myself, chiefly for the purpose of photographing, in situ, some of the beautiful homes. We found:
30th July - (1) A nest I had visited two seasons previously contained two eggs half incubated. (2) Nest with fully-fledged young. (3) Nest with two eggs, fresh. (4) Nest with two eggs, half incubated. (5) Nest with three eggs, fresh. (6) Two nests building. Fortnight afterwards (13th August) contained each three eggs. One of these nests made a most successful photograph.
To show how closely in some instances the various families of Thrushes live to each other, it may be stated that three of the above nests were not more than forty or fifty yards apart, and were situated at points so as form a triangle in the scrub.
I give Mr. Lau's interesting notes of this bird near its northern limit in the sub-tropical scrub of South Queensland, which may be taken as referring to G. heinii:
'Geocichla lunulate is an inhabitant of the gloomy cedar scrub along the sea coast, resorting near water and always hoping on the ground seeking among the moist debris for its food. Its colour resembles the European Song Thrush. The nest is not unlike that of the (home) Black Bird, and is situated in the first and thick fork of a tree richly bedecked with moss, and the outside covering being formed of the same material. The nest is not so easily detected, and only the bird flying from it betrays the convenient site. The lining consists of rootlets and dark fibre, abundantly to be found in such localities. The eggs also resemble those of the Black Bird. They number two or three - Bunya Mountains, December, 1856.'
An egg in Mr. D. Le Souëf's collection, collected by Mr. Lau, in South Queensland, is inclined to oval; texture fine; surface glossy, colour, pale bluish-white, finely and faintly spotted, thickest on the apex, with chestnut or rufous and dull purplish-brown. It is smaller and not so much marked as those of the southern birds. Dimensions: 1.12 x .79 inches. I venture to say this egg is probably that of G. heinii.
\nMr. W. White of South Australia sends me a note of having taken a nest of the Ground Thrush on Mount Lofty, which is probably the extreme western limit of the bird's range. I looked in vain for a Ground Thrush in the great timber tracts of Western Australia.
\nReferences
Transcribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 184-188.
BROWN KINGFISHER (LAUGHING JACKASS)
\nDacelo Gigas, Boddaert - (60)
\nGeographical Distribution - South Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South and West (intro-duced 1896) Australia.
\nNest - In a hole or spouted limb of a tree; but is sometime, especially in Queensland, in a hole drilled into the nest of ants or termites situated in a fork or upon the side of a standing tree. An instance is known of a net made in the heart of a 'calabash' - the fern, Platycerium alcicorne.
\nEggs - Clutch, three to four; round in shape, sharply contracted at one end; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour, pure white. Dimensions in inches of a clutch: (1) 1.92 x 1.45, (2) 183 x 1.5, (3) 1.83 x 1.42.
\nObservations - The Great Brown Kingfisher (native name Kookaburra), or more commonly called Laughing Jackass, from its quaint appearance and its rollicking laughter-like notes, is not only a favour-ite among naturalists, but with every dweller in the bush. The adult Laughing Jackass has a dusky back and wings, some parts of the wings, especially the shoulders, also the lower portion of the back, being relieved with markings of blue. The tail is brownish, barred with black. The rest of the plumage may be termed buff, with a dark-brownish wash on the feathers of the head and ear coverts. The awkward-looking bill is brownish-black on the upper mandible, and yellowish or pale buff on the under mandible, while the eyes are dark-brown, and the feet yellowish. The total length of the bird is about 18 inches, including tail 5 ½ inches, and bill 3 inches.
\nAmongst the most cheerful of forest sounds at evening are this bird's notes when heard among lofty trees up some gully. Then again at early dawn, soon after the chirping notes of the Yellow Robin and sometimes before the melodious Magpie, the voices of the Jackasses herald the coming day. On two mornings I timed the Jackass's first song at 4.20, or just one hour before sunrise. Again at evening it is delightful to listen to these birds in the bush, when they are particularly noisy. But all settle down quietly as the last light of the day fades out. It has been stated that the female only voices the laughter-like notes, while the male accompanies her with the growling noise. Is it a fact?
\nUntil recent years the Great Brown Kingfisher did not appear to exist in Western Australia - I refer more particularly to the forests of the south-west, which would appear equally as well adapted to the peculiar habits of the bird as the eastern timber tracts are. However, Mr. G. A. Keartland, of the Calvert ex-pedition in 1896, stated whilst camped at Mullawa he heard the well-known notes of these birds, and ob-served a few of them always near the camps. They were also noted between Fremantle and Perth. Perhaps these latter were some of the birds captured in Victoria by Mr. James Cooper, and sent to Western Australia by order of the Government, or perhaps the Jackasses had followed the numerous other eastern 'Jackasses' who had been attracted to the glorious west by the wonderful gold discoveries. The Brown Kingfisher being the southern form of the genus Dacelo, I was agreeable sur-prised, in 1885, to find the bird as far north as the Cardwell Scrubs, North Queensland. Since then, Mr. Dudley Le Souëf informs me he noted the bird on the Bloomfield River, still further north. It has been observed in the interior at Cooper's Creek.
\nThe chief breeding months of the Brown Kingfisher are from September to the end of the year, during which period usually two broods are reared. In Southern Queensland Mr. Lau observed that the first clutch was generally laid in September, and the second in November. The nesting place is not lined in any way; the eggs are merely deposited on the dust of the decomposed wood in the hollow, or, if in termites' nests, on the bare floor at the end of the tunnel. Old nests are sometimes resorted to; but if new quarters have to be found, both male and female birds assist in excavating the hole.
\nOn October 31st (1893), Mr. George H. Morton took three eggs from the spout of a red-gum tree, five feet from the ground, near the Murray River. On November 27th, he found a young bird in the same nest. When Mr. Morton removed the three eggs he may have left one remaining, but the greater prob-ability is the fourth egg was laid afterwards. However, on the 12th December the young had left the nest. Therefore we may infer that from the time the female deposits her eggs till the young quit the nest is about six weeks.* After the young leave the nest their parents continue to feed them for a time. By their clamorous noise for food the whereabouts of the young is easily ascertained.
\nIn my note-book I find the following recorded:
\n9th November, 1870 - Visited a nest, containing three young, in the hole of a tree near Dandenong Creek.
11th October, 1880 - Found an egg fresh upon the ground near Berwick
13th October, 1885 - Present when a pair of eggs was taken from termites' nest at Coomooboolaroo, Queensland.
1st November, 1890 - Clutch, three eggs, taken at Clayton, Victoria.
6th November, 1892 - Observed nest with young, Murray River.
Jackasses have been observed gathering mussels (Unio) at the edge of a creek, and whacking them against a log or limb endeavouring to open them; they will also dive for small cray-fish. Mr. C. H. McLennan tells me he has observed these birds perching on a limb just over the river (Wimmera) and diving into shallow water after yabbies (small crayfish), sometimes going right under.
\nNo doubt the Jackasses only kill snakes for food, because dead ones are occasionally found in their nesting holes. Mr. A. W. Milligan, formerly of Traralgon, Victoria, also proved the fact by taking young Jackasses from a nest in the vicinity of his home and keeping them on a cage. When the old birds found out the captives, they sometimes brought, amongst other tit-bits, snakes, and large ones too, to feed their young.
\nIn reference to Jackasses killing snakes, Mr. H. W. Wheelwright observed a pair that had a disabled carpet snake under an old gum tree. The birds sat on a dead branch above the reptile, every now and again darting down and pecking it, and by their antics and chattering appeared to considerably enjoy themselves at the expense of the snake
\nMr. Thos. R. Macdougall's (Queensland) field observations on 'Jackasses v. Snakes,' read:-
\n'On one occasion I saw a Jackass with a black snake about twelve inches or eighteen inches in length. On frightening the bird it dropped the snake, and I carefully examined it and found that it had not been long dead, and was only wounded behind the head. Its neck was broken. I also saw on one occasion a Jackass and green snake that had been killed while on the ground. The snake was coiled tightly around the bird's neck and body, so that it could not rise from the ground.'
\n*I possess a pair of live Jackasses that was taken from a nest when the birds were about a month old. At the age of six weeks one endeavoured to laugh, and both could laugh loudly and lustily before they were three months old.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. Transcribed from pp. 304-305.
GROUND THRUSH (Geocichla Lunulata, Latham)
\nGeographical Distribution - New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
Nest - Large, open, beautiful; outwardly composted of green moss, dried leaves, grass, etc., matted together with earth or sand; lined inside with a thick ply of grass, sometimes with pieces of rushes and rootlets added. Usually situated on a thick limb or fork of a coastal tea-tree (Leptospermum) or banksia, in a swamp tea-tree (Melaleuca) by a creek, or in a mossy musk or other tree in the mountains, but always sheltered by thick scrub. Dimensions over all, 8 to 10 inches by 5 or 6 inches in depth; egg cavity, 2 ¾ inches across by 2 inches deep. \nEggs - Clutch, two to three; true oval in form; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour, light warmish-green, spotted and blotched, usually all over, with reddish or rufous-brown, intermingled with cloud-like markings of dull-red. Dimensions in inches of proper clutches: A (1) 1.33 x .9, (2) 1.32 x .92, (3) 1.31 x .92; B (1) 1.29 x .87, (2) 1.28 x .86, (3) 1.24 x .86. (Plate 9).
\nObservations - The true home of lovable bird is the great forest region and coastal scrubs of South-east Australia. My associations with the Mountain Thrush, or, more strictly speaking, Ground Thrush, have been of the most pleasant and interesting kind; therefore if I have wandered too much into detail in giving my ob-servations on this bird, please skip, and put down to excessive enthusiasm on my part.
\nThe bird may be called Mountain, for it is a lover of the fern gullies and musk-tree thickets of the hilly tracts. But is has been in the tea-tree groves of the coast where I have most cultivated its acquaintance.
\nOn the eastern shore of Port Phillip, after passing St. Kilda, patches of tea-tree (Leptospermum), greater or smaller in extent, occur at intervals until Mordialloc is reached. Here density commences in real earnest, and constitutes almost an unbroken margin to the eastern portion of the bay. In these dense brushed, if carefully sought for, may be seen the Ground Thrush - a timid, modest creature - 'at home'.
\nIn October this great belt of living Leptospermum is a mass of white flowers, so dense that in some sheltered nooks the warm grey foliage and seed cups are barely visible. The aroma from the flowers is like the perfume of new honey.
\nLovers of nature, poets, and others, in all lands, usually connect the wedding garment of spring with the nesting of birds. And so it is, as a rule; but the nesting of the Ground Thrush is one of the interesting but not altogether unique exceptions among our Australian birds.
\nIn the bleak and frosty months like July, the Ground Thrush commences to construct its nest, or re-build by making additions to a former old home. In cases where nests are used by the birds season after season, they become a goodly size, and the foundations have a venerable, moss-grown appearance. Some of these favourite old homes measure a foot across, while the actual cup of the nest would only measure half that dimension by two or three inches deep.
\nA favourite situation for the nest is about twelve feet from the ground in the fork of an upright tree, in the centre of a thick clump or scrub, growing in a hollow or dip between the ancient sand drifts, where about the base of the trees is scattered dead and decaying timber among dwarf and sparingly-grown bracken. Another favourite locality for a nest is on a sand rise, about twenty paces from high-water mark, the nest being placed on a thick horizontal branch hidden with thick foliage; or another site is a darkened spot where the taller tea-tree tops meeting overhead, together with the closely-packed, twiggy, lichen-covered stems, quite subdue the light below. Another nest may be humbly situated within read of hand. Yet again a secure resting-place for a nest may be chosen on a rough bulky limb of a banksia tree, if well protected with crowded tea-tree scrub.
\nThe nests are perfect models of bird architecture, beautify proportioned and tastefully decorated with verdant moss - fit subjects for pictures (see illustration). The eggs also are gems for beauty, being of a delicate light-green, mottled with purplish-red. A triplet of eggs may be found once in every two or three nests, the balance being in pairs.
\nAs stated, the eggs are generally deposited in winter. One wonders how it is possible for the little naked young to survive the raw months. But let a person enter these dense tea-tree scrubs, and he will be astonished at the mildness of the atmosphere there, for the density of the timber and foliage seems to exclude the keenest wind, neither does the frost harden the ground.
\nSometimes the earliest birds lay bout the end of June; a few during July. Perhaps about one-fifth of the young are hatched by the end of that month; but from the first to the middle of August the majority of the birds lay.
\nAlthough the Ground Thrush is such an early breeder there are exceptions, as with other rules, in its case. Once in the middle of September I saw a nest with three eggs, supposed to be a second clutch or birds previously robbed in the locality, although I do not think they all lay a second time during the season if their nest is interfered with.
\nMr. J. Gabriel furnished me with two authenticated notes of late nests with eggs, seen in the Dandenongs. One was towards the end of November, the other 20th December. I also leant of another nest having been taken 9th November, 1893, at Dandenong Creek.
\nIn the young, feathers soon succeed down, and from the nest they assume the same coloured garb as their parents, the prevailing colour of which is olive-brown, darkest on the back and much lighter on the breast and flanks. With the exception of the wings, tail, and centre of abdomen, each feather has a lunar or moon-shaped mark of black at the tip; hence the specific name, lunulata. The beak and feet are horn-coloured, the former yellowish at the gape. The dark-brown eyes are full of meek expression. In fact, the bird's whole contour is captivating, more especially when seen with neck shortened on its moss-bedecked nest, or standing with partly drooping wings over its helpless fledgelings.
\nWith other persons, including Gould, I used to fancy the one drawback in the nature of the Mountain or Ground Thrush was that it was dumb, save a few squeaky nots uttered when alarmed, or when the young was approached, when the bird hurried and flopped over the ground through the scrub, and at the feet of the intruder, making a feeble but sustained hissing whistle. But since. I have learned this Thrush is really a songster, which especially loves to sing 'betwixt the lights' after the sun has gone down. Then the Thrush may be heard in a modest, subdued whistling song, as if to while away the interval of twilight. The music is interspersed with portions of song not unlike that of the English Thrush, but without the full impassioned notes, being a melodious whistle of chiefly two notes, a slide about a third from one to the other, with trills and variations. Sometimes the bird sings at dawn.
\nLike most true Thrushes, the Ground Thrush loves to feed upon molluscs, but it is not averse to worms. A field observer tole me how he once watched a bird gathering worms, presumably for its young. Pulling a worm out of the ground, the bird would hop silently about with the twisting captive in its bill until another was discovered. Dropping No. 1, No. 2 was hauled from its hole, then No. 1 was again picked up and No. 3 prospected for; and so on, the bird laying down its mouthful each time a fresh capture was to be made, until it had difficulty in keeping together about half-dozen wriggling worms. It would finally fly away with the lot.
\nThe greatest season I experienced amongst the Ground Thrushes was in 1886.
\nThe following are my field notes:-
31st July - Nest in upright tree, fairly thick scrub, in a dip with bracken, dead and decaying logs about. Eggs, two.
14th August - Nest in thick stumpy tree, dense scrub and undergrowth on sandy rise. Eggs, two.
14th August - Nest in stunted tree, dense small scrub on sandy rise near the beach. Eggs, two.
14th August - Among very thick lichen-covered trees near the beach, several growing from one root. Nest on overhanging prong, moss plentiful on ground underneath springing through the dead tea-tree leaves. Eggs, three.
14th August - In straight tree amongst a clump. Nest on underneath limb. Large banksia near tree. Eggs, two.
14th August - In more open but clumpy scrub with thick grass about. Nest eight feet from ground. Eggs, two.
14th August - In overhanging tree in comparatively open scrub; beautiful nest, perfect in shape, edged with pretty moss. Eggs, three.
All the foregoing nests were found after three hours' toiling in and out of a belt of scrub about half-a-mile in extent. The nests varied in height from six t twelve feet above the ground, and with the exception of No. 1, were all found building on the 31st July.
\nGiving the Thrushes a season's rest, I visited my favour locality again in 1888. Result:-
\n4th August - Saw fledged young flying with their parents. 4th August - Saw nest building; completed apparently on the 11th, when I took eggs (three), which were slightly incubated. 4th August - Nest in thick low tree. Three eggs partly incubated. 11th August - Nest on overhanging limb. Eggs, three, fresh. 11th August - Saw a nest in overhanging tree, containing three young which were flesh-coloured, with dark or black stripes along centre of back and down wings, with tufts of yellowish down. Birds probably fourteen days old.
\nAll the above nests were in tea-trees.
15th September - Saw Ground Thrush's nest with three eggs. Supposed to be second clutch of birds previously robbed. Heard some birds whistling melodiously at 6.15 p.m., or about twenty-five minutes after sun-down.
Season 1889:-
10th August - Two nests with young about ten days old. Two building in banksias, and a third with one egg. These contained three eggs each on the 24th.
Season 1890:-
2nd August - (1) Visited nest from which I took eggs previous year; contained three fully-fledged young. (2) Found another old nest being renovated; fortnight afterwards contained two eggs. (3) Nest with two fresh eggs. (4) Nest with foundation laid. (5) Nest with two eggs slightly incubated. (6) Nest destroyed by some enemy - bird or beast; one egg remaining. (7) An old nest examined; it contained two eggs on the 16th, when I heard birds whistling as sun was setting.
All these nests were in tea-tree, except No. 5, which was in a banksia.
\nAfter another year's respite the haunts of the Ground Thrush were again invaded in 1892 by a party, including Messrs. Le Souëf (three), Mr. R. S. Rogers, my son, and myself, chiefly for the purpose of photographing, in situ, some of the beautiful homes. We found:-
\n30th July - (1) A nest I had visited two seasons previously contained two eggs half incubated. (2) Nest with fully-fledged young. (3) Nest with two eggs, fresh. (4) Nest with two eggs, half incubated. (5) Nest with three eggs, fresh. (6) Two nests building. Fortnight afterwards (13th August) contained each three eggs. One of these nests made a most successful photograph.
\nTo show how closely in some instances thee various families of Thrushes live to each other, it may be stated that three of the above nests were not more than forty or fifty yards apart, and were situated at points so as form a triangle in the scrub.
\nI give Mr. Lau's interesting notes of this bird near its northern limit in the sub-tropical scrub of South Queensland, which may be taken as referring to G. heinii:-
\n'Geocichla lunulate is an inhabitant of the gloomy cedar scrub along the sea coast, resorting near water and always hoping on the ground seeking among the moist debris for its food. Its colour resembles the European Song Thrush. The nest is not unlike that of the (home) Black Bird, and is situated in the first and thick fork of a tree richly bedecked with moss, and the outside covering being formed of the same material. The nest is not so easily detected, and only the bird flying from it betrays the convenient site. The lining consists of rootlets and dark fibre, abundantly to be found in such localities. The eggs also resemble those of the Black Bird. They number two o three - Bunya Mountains, December, 1856.'
\nAn egg in Mr. D. Le Souëf's collection, collected by Mr. Lau, in South Queensland, is inclined to oval; texture fine; surface glossy, colour, pale bluish-white, finely and faintly spotted, thickest on the apex, with chestnut or rufous and dull purplish-brown. It is smaller and not so much marked as those of the southern birds. Dimensions: 1.12 x .79 inches. I venture to say this egg is probably that of G. heinii.
\nMr. W. White, of South Australia, sends me a note of having taken a nest of the Ground Thrush on Mount Lofty, which is probably the extreme western limit of the bird's range. I looked in vain for a Ground Thrush in the great timber tracts of Western Australia.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. Transcribed from pp. 184-188.
REED WARBLER (Acrocephalus Australis, Gould - 246)
\nGeographical Distribution - Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania; also Lombock (A. R. Wallace).
\nNest - Cup shaped, deep; outwardly composed of long, soft, pliable stems of aquatic plants, woven and intermixed with swamp débris, roots, &c.; usually firmly secured on four or five reeds standing in water. Other examples are composed of a mass of dark-coloured roots; lined inside in either case with a goodly supply of clean yellowish grass, chiefly the soft tops of flowering portions. Dimension over all, 3 to 3½ inches by 3¼ to 4 inches in depth; egg cavity, 1 5/8 to 1¾ inches across by 2 inches deep.
\nEggs - Clutch, three to four; swollen oval in shape; texture of shell close and fine; surface glossy; colour, greyish or greenish-white, faintly spotted, in other instances boldly blotched, with roundish markings of umber or olive of different shades, and grey. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch: (1) .83 x .61, (2) .82 x .6, (3) .79 x .6; of a smaller sized set: (1) .7 x .54, (2) .7 x .54, (3) .69 x .53. (Plate 9).
\nObservations - The Reed Warbler is an intensely interesting bird, ranging down Eastern Australia to Victoria and Tasmania, but coming and going mysteriously in the southern parts of its habitat.
\nBesides being a migrant, the Reed Warbler, as its name indicates, is a merry and cheerful songster, not only by day but by night, its song being quite canary-like. As the bird betakes itself to sedgy sides of rivers and to reeds and rushes of swamps, one cannot always see the birds in such secluded coverts, but their presence or arrival may always be ascertained by hearing their loud merry warbles.
\nWhen I first came to Armadale, not far distant from my home there use to be an abandoned brick quarry, partially filled with water, wherein flags grew. Here one or two pairs of Reed Warblers found a secure retreat. Often have I loved to listen to their lively voices, especially at evening, and sometimes through the night.
\nThe following are some promiscuous dates of the arrival of Reed Warblers in the vicinity of Melbourne: -
\nSeason 1886 - Birds heard at Yarraville, 1st September. On the 21st, others heard at Caulfield swamp, where none were present the previous day.
Season 1890 - First birds heard at 'Como' on the Yarra, end of August or beginning of September.
Season 1896 - First heard on the Yarra, near Toorak, 9th September.
Season 1897 - First heard on the Yarra, near Toorak, 9th August.
In the Bendigo district, Dr. W. Macgillivray has noted the Reed Warbler early in August.
\nMy data referring to the Reed Warblers' departure are not so complete. I recollect examining one nest containing young, apparently not many days old, on the 28th January (1895). Nine days afterwards, or on the 6th February, they had flown. February is the month the Warblers commence to retire northward. It was noticed in the neighbourhood of Toorak that during the second week of that month (in 1897) the birds left the river for the shrubs in the gardens close by before finally taking their departure, which was apparently accomplished by the last week of that month.
\nOn a balmy summer day it is a glorious experience for the enthusiastic egg collector, after donning a pair of old pants and boots which will as readily let water out as in, to walk through the sedges of a swamp. He quickly gets lost to view in the tall ranks of thick reeds, which he parts with first one hand and then the other, proceeding slowly, not unfrequently floundering into a hole, and consequently finding himself suddenly up to his arm-pits in the cooling water. Now and again a nest is espied, about two feet above the surface of the water, built on a few upright flags, and containing two, three or four, as the case may be, of the familiar greyish, brown-mottled eggs.
\nOn the margins of the Yarra, near Melbourne, some of the Reed Warblers, on account of the absence of reeds, suspend their nests in the drooping green tresses of willows that hang over thee river. As a rule, the Reed Warbler builds over water, but instances are known where nests have been observed on dry land, perhaps fifty paces from water, in herbage, such as flowering stocks of dock-week, &c.
\nThe first eggs are usually laid about the middle of October. At the height of the breeding season Reed Warblers appear to build their nests very rapidly. On the 24th November (1888) I visited a strip of sedges in a favoured locality and found two or three nests building. Going through the same sedges eleven days subsequently I examined no less than fourteen nests containing a total of thirty-eight eggs, mostly fresh, or an average of 2 4/7 per clutch.
\nRespecting the Reed Warbler in a more northerly habitat, I possess Mr. Herman Lau's note from South Queensland. He says: - 'Reed Warbler - one of our best singers, in all respects like its European cousin - lays three eggs. Sings during incubation at all times, even during the night. Comes to Queensland in the latter end of August, and leave, after rearing two broods, in February. Took eggs at Tummaville, twelve miles south of Yandilla, 1868.' \n
The illustration, although conveying a fair idea of the nest, is hardly a successful photograph.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. Page 181-183.
STUBBLE QUAIL (Coturnix pectoralis, Gould - (486))
\nGeographical Distribution - Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria, South and Western Australia, and Tasmania.
\nNest - Upon the ground in crop or herbage, the nesting hollow, 4-1/2 inches across, being lined with straw or grass as the case may be. (See illustration.)
\nEggs - Clutch seven to eleven or twelve, rare instances maximum fourteen; roundish oval in shape; texture somewhat coarse; surface glossy; colour, dirty-yellow, heavily blotched and smudged with dark olive green. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch; (1) 1.27 x .91, (2) 1.27 x .9, (3) 1.25 x .93, (4) 1.25 x .88, (5) 1.22 x .91, (6) 1.22 x .92, (7) 1.19 x .88. (Plate 17).
\nObservations - The Stubble Quail may be said to be the only true Quail in Australia. As its name implies, it frequents grassy or stubble-like localities on plain or in forest alike, and is found throughout Australia, except perhaps the extreme north, and Tasmania.
\nIt is a fine bird, with its brown coat, the feathers being zig-zagged transversely with lines of black, and striped down the centre with spear l-like markings of yellowish-white. The chest and flanks are brown, while the abdomen is whitish; feet also whitish, dark, and eyes hazel. Total length about 6-3/4 inches; bill, ½ inch wing, 3/7/8 inches; tarsus, 7/8 inch. The male is readily distinguished from the female by the black markings on his chest and his buff-coloured throat, the throat of the female being white. Two brace of both sexes presented to me by a friend at the opening of last season weighed 15 ounces total.
\nDuring his rambles in Australia, Gould frequently found nests and eggs of this Quail, remarking that 'the number of eggs in each nest varies from eleven to fourteen. The situations chosen for the nest are much diversified; sometimes it is placed among the thick grass off luxuriant flats, while at others it is artfully concealed by a tuft of herbage on the open plains.'
\nI possess pleasant recollections of my first experiences amongst the Stubble Quail, when long ago, as boys, we used to find their eggs in the crops on the plain, or under rank tussock grass that clothed the banks of the Werribee River. So plentiful were they one season that we captured some of the birds themselves, not to mention maimed birds that had survived the shot of the fowler and escaped his dogs.
\nMr. C.H. Grove, Snowy River, Gippsland, sent me the following interesting note, together with the clutch of seven Stubble Quail's eggs:- 'Bird commenced to lay 30th November (1891) and laid for seven consecutive days, the smallest egg (a brownish-coloured example) being the last. The nest on the first day was a bare hole scrapped in the ground, but after the eggs were all laid some slight attempt was made at lining it.'
\nIn Southern Victoria, before the Quails were disseminated or distributed, \"Old Bushman\" (the late H.W. Wheelwright), in his fascinating little volume, 'Bush Wanderings of a Naturalist', remarks that he observed the Stubble Quail come down about the middle of September, and remain to breed, and early in February they all appeared to leave the breeding grounds, but not the district, for they them packed, and in certain localities large flocks were to be seen late in March. The call-note of the Stubble Quail is a loud, oft-repeated 'to-weep', the native name of the bird. Their note as they rise is a sharp chirp. Sportsmen regard the bird as easy to kill on account of its straight flight. Some of the earlier birds breed in September, others later, according to the season, the majority laying in the summer months (i.e., December, January, and February), or when the seeds ripen. We have many instances of late (probably second) broods in Victoria.
\nI knew of an incident at Mordialloc, on the opening day of the shooting season for Quail (1st March, 1897), when a Stubble bird rose and was shot, it being afterwards ascertained she flushed from a set of six fresh eggs. The same season, in Gippsland, at mid-winter (July), a clutch of newly-hatched young was seen.
\nCaptain Doveton, a keen sportsman, kindly furnished me with a note of having seen, at Sunbury, on 28th April, 1888, Stubble Quail too young to shoot.
\nMy friend Mr. A.W. Milligan, in communicating to The Australasian, and writing from Gippsland, the season 1895, states:- 'It might be interesting to some of your sporting and scientific readers to know that on Good Friday morning last, 12th April, whilst Quail shooting on the Traralgon Park Estate, Traralgon, I found a Quail's nest containing seven eggs. On breaking one of them I found it to have been comparatively new-laid. On Easter Tuesday following, the dogs of my friend who accompanied me flushed a 'squeaker,' which I subsequently caught, and have now in captivity.The dogs on the same day found three much younger birds, which were unable to fly, one of which they killed. The birds were the Coturnix pectoralis, or Stubble Quail.'
\nI could recount many other instances of Quails breeding laet in the season, were it necessary.
\nThere has been much controversy in Victoria, about the close season for Quails, many of our sportsmen complaining that it opens too late (i.e., 1st March); but I think it would be to the sportsman's own interest to let the law remain as it is, besides, it would give the birds the benefit of the doubt. Our Quail are not migratory, as some persons suppose, but their movements are regulated by the seasons. If they were migratory, they would disappear from Tasmania also, where, if I remember rightly, the shooting season does not open till the 1st May.
\nA fact that mitigates against our brooding Quails is that they are prone to nest in grain crops, which are usually garnered before the young are hatched; thus many eggs are destroyed. Then if the old birds seek other pastures they have hardly time to rear second broods before the hunter's gun is heard. I may here give the interesting and valuable remarks of 'Neno,' as they appeared in The Australasian, 5th December, 1896 :- 'The common belief is that Stubble Quail migrate, arriving in Victoria in spring, and leaving in autumn. Such a belief is erroneous. Quail do not migrate. They certainly shift about, and at odd times, owing to bad seasons, they move off to better feeding grounds. In spring the stubble birds are numerous on the grassy river flats and reclaimed coast marsh lands of South Gippsland, also in growing crops, and such like places. Young Quail may be seen in November, and I have noted them up to the end of February. When the shooting season opens in March many birds are shot on the flats and stubble fields, but during April and May sportsmen find that they are getting scarce in such places, and nine out of ten shooters will tell you that the birds are migrating. Not so; they have only gone to better feeding grounds, and will not be far off. The great wastes of barren bayonet or spear grass plains are the winter home of the Stubble Quail. The birds feed on the rich sunflower-like seed of the spear-grass. There are miles of spear-grass plains in South Gippsland, stretching from the mouth of Powlett River round to Foster In winter Quail are to be found wherever the spear-grass is in seed. The rat-tail-shaped seed pods are known locally as black-heads. Shooting over these plains I kill mostly stubble birds in the open, an d Brown Quail on the edges of patches of stunted tea-tree. On the dry ridges I get an occasional brace of Painted birds. The plains simply swarm with the little King Quail. The best shooting is to be had in June and July. In March a good shot should account for every bird rising in range, for, as a rule, they are mostly squeakers, but on the open spear grass plains on a chilly winter's day, with a stiff breeze blowing, the fine full-conditioned Stubble or Brown Birds get away with strength and speed, that will test the skill of the most expert. During last winter (1896) Quail were exceptionally plentiful on the Powlett Plains, and at Cape Patterson, but the market shooters swept over the country, and cleaned them out to a bird. There were hundreds of brace shot round about the village of Inverloch alone. The marketer uses the best nitro powders, and I have seen one tramping behind eight setters, working regularly day after day, and killing out every bird, often shooting as many as thirty brace in a day. When a marketer camps on a shooting ground he appears to consider that he is sole owner of the game, and manfully disputes the right of anyone else to shoot. I need scarcely say that he is not much loved by the sporting Quail shooter. When shooting in winter on the plains I have noticed the absence of Hawks. One would naturally expect to find them where game is so plentiful, yet we rarely see anything but an occasional Eagle. I often shoot specimens of the domestic cat gone wild, foxes and native cats on the Quail grounds; and I think the fox is the greatest enemy they have.'
\nYoung in down resemble miniature chicks of a domestic fowl, being brownish in colour, indistinctly striated with black.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 721-724.
WHITE-BREASTED ROBIN (Amaurodryas Gularis, Quoy & Gairmard - 177)
\nGeographical Distribution - West Australia.
\nNest - Cup shaped; composed of strips of bark, fine twigs and leaves; in some instances decorated out-wardly with dead, bleached pieces of bracken fronds; lined inside with fine rootlets and grass. Usually placed low in the upright forked branches of a small tree (such as a Casuarina), in the fork of a grass-tree (Xanthorrhoa), or in a thick bush in forest. Dimensions over all, 3½ to 4 inches by 2½ inches in depth; egg cavity, 2 inches across by 1¼ inches deep.
\nEggs - Clutch, two usually; inclined to oval in form; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour, olive or bronze-green, of a darker shade on or around the apex. Most resemble those of the Dusky or Hooded Robins. Dimensions in inches of a clutch: (1) .83 x .6, (2) .81 x .61; of another pair: (1) .86 x .61, (2) .83 x .59. (Plate 12).
\nObservations - The White-breasted Robin has a habitat peculiar to Western Australia, and may be easily identified by its dark, greyish coat, all under surface being white. Both sexes are alike in colour. To discover its nest and eggs was one of the tasks I set myself before leaving Melbourne for the great western territory. I had not been in the Albany district a week before I made my way to the Tor Bay saw-mills. There, to my delight, a pair of White-breasted Robins almost immediately introduced themselves by appearing about the men's quarters. In a day or two (2nd October, 1889) I was enabled to track them down to the creek close by, where, in a fork of an erect she-oak (Casuarina) sapling, eight or ten feet up, I discovered the nest containing a pair of eggs, about half-incubated. A few days or a week sub-sequently, in another part of the forest, I took a second nest, hidden in the fork of a grass-tree (Xanth-orrhoa), where the drooping, rush-like foliage carefully concealed the home. These eggs were perfectly fresh. A third nest, I found in a thick bush in the Karridale district, contained an addled egg.
\nGould and other authorities class the Whit-bellied or White-breasted Robin with the Eopsaltria, and I have ventured to place it in the genus Amaurodryas, with the Dusky Robin of Tasmania, to which, oologically at all events, it more closely belongs. Probably the chief breeding months for the White-breasted Robin are from September to December.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. 'Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon', Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. pp.148-149.
YELLOW-BELLIED FIG BIRD (Specotheres Flaviventris, Gould - 287)
\nGeographical Distribution - Northern Territory, Queensland and New South Wales, also Ké Islands.
\nNest - Open, shallow; composed of wire-like stalks or tendrils of plants, and lined inside with brownish twigs. The structure can be easily seen through from beneath. Several nests are usually placed in the topmost horizontal branches of a tall eucalypt. Dimensions over all, 5 inches by 3 inches in depth; egg cavity, 3½ inches across by 1½ inches deep.
\nEggs - Clutch, two to three; oval in shape; texture of shell moderately fine; surface glossy; colour, varies from a delicate green to olive-brown, but usually pale or light green, moderately spotted and blotched with rufous or reddish-brown and purplish-brown. Similar to those of the Southern Fig Bird. Dimensions in inches of a pair: (1) 1.23 x .91, (2) 1.2 x .92. (Plate 6)
\nObservations - The Yellow-bellied Fig Bird is usually confined to Northern Australia and some of the islands beyond. However, Mr. S. W. Jackson noticed in the Clarence district of New South Wales, January, 1890; and another season subsequently, during the same month, he saw numbers of the bird at Byron Bay, where he shot a pair. The male is a beautiful creature, its rich jonquil-yellow under surface being shown off to perfection with aesthetic olive-green coat and glossy black cap, and eyes surrounded by bright crimson orbits. The female differs from her lord in being olive-brown with streaked markings like her cousins, the Orioles. Total length, 10 ½ inches; wing, 5 ¾ inches; bill, 1 1/8 inches; tail, 4 ¼ inches; tarsus, 7/8 inch.
\nThe most striking birds that visited the precincts of our camp at Cardwell were the males of this species. They often, especially in the morning, perched on the summit of the very trees to which our tents were suspended, and poured forth over our heads beautiful songs not altogether unlike those of the English Thrush. As in the case of the Yellow Oriole, we were much too early in the season for eggs. Macgillivray, a valuable correspondent of Gould, reported that once at Cape York he saw several nests which he (Macgillivray) which he entertained no doubt belongs to this bird; nearly all of them were built among the topmost branches of very large gum-trees, which the natives could not be induced to climb. However, it was left to Mr. Dudley Le Souëf years after to bring to scientific light the nest and eggs. He found the birds plentiful in the open country in the Bloomfield River district, and, as Macgillivray also noticed, often in company with Friar Birds (Philemon).
\nMr. Le Souëf's own words are: - 'We noticed them building on a small white gum-tree, on 18th October (1893), and found five of their nests on the tree, also that of a Silvery-crowned Leatherhead (P. argenti-ceps); they were all built near the ends of thin boughs, and only one could be got by our native climber. We could see from below how many eggs were in each nest, the full clutch being three. Our blackfellow had a long thin stick, and the nests he could not get at, he rolled the eggs out one by one, and I caught them all uninjured in my hat as they fell.' A field note, kindly sent me from Mr. W. B. Barnard, states that at Bloomfield River he found theYellow-bellied Fig Bird breeding in the month of January. At the extreme north (Cape York) his brother, Mr. Harry Barnard, in 1896 took the following nests: - In October, four nests, two with each three eggs and two with two; November, two with each three eggs, December, one with two eggs. Usual breeding months October to January.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. Transcribed from pp. 84-85.
WHITE-SHOULDERED CATERPILLAR CATCHER
\nGeographical Distribution -Whole of Australia and Tasmania (casual), also New Guinea.
\nNest - Small and shallow, loosely composed of fine stalks of plants, bark, grasses, with the addition of cob-webs, chiefly on the outside, and situated generally in the uppermost pronged branches of trees or saplings, sometimes on a dead horizontal branch. Dimensions of a fairly-sized nest, 3 inches over all, by 2 inches in depth; egg cavity, 2 inches across by 1 inch deep.
\nEggs - Clutch, two or three; roundish oval in form; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour, light or dull warmish-green, somewhat heavily blotched, especially about the apex, where the markings are confluent, with umber or reddish- brown and dull-slate. There is considerable variation in the ground-colour, which is lighter in some instances, darker in others, and frequently nearly covered with the reddish markings. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch: (1) .81 x .64, (2) .79 x .63, (3) .78 x .65. (Plate 7.)
\nObservations - At one period or other of the year this bird is common to the whole of Australia. Its prevalence in the southern parts, however, is only noticed in summer, when it breeds, returning northward again in winter. It used to be well-known to collectors years ago in the vicinity of Melbourne, where in an afternoon two or three nests might easily be detected by the bird sitting in the topmost forked branches of black wattles (Acacia). The White-shouldered Caterpillar Catcher arrives at its most southerly limits about the beginning of September (I have noticed the bird in Riverina on the 1st, again at Mordialloc, Victoria, on the 19th), commencing to breed almost immediately, or by the latter end of that month. The breeding season continues into January or even February.
\nBoth Gould and Gilbert agree that during that particular season the male birds become very pugnacious by attacking each other in a desperate manner, or by chasing the female from tree to tree, at the same time pouring forth his sweet agreeable song.
\nGilbert's remarks of the bird in Western Australia apply accurately to our own in the east - that the nest is so diminutive that it is difficult to detect (except perhaps when the bird is sitting), and so shallow in form that it is quite surprising the eggs do not roll out whenever the branch is shaken by the wind.
\nDuring the progress of the Calvert Expedition in North-west Australia, numbers of the birds in immature plumage were noticed near Lake Way, in July. Near the Fitzroy River during February they were breeding, and several clutches of eggs were taken, which presented considerable variation in colour, some being heavily blotched with red on a pale-green ground, whilst others were streaked and blotched with dark-brown on a rich-green ground. The nests, which were as usual, small for the size of the birds, were built of fine grass, moss, cob-webs, and scraps of bark in the horizontal forks of the eucalypt and bauhinia trees, in such a manner as to make their discovery somewhat difficult.
\nFrom Mr. C. C. Brittlebank's observations it would appear that the male alone constructs the nest. He writes: - 'Re Campephaga, 17th February, 1897. Watched the male bird for over four hours in the morning, and about the same time in the afternoon, hard at work building the nest. His mate was nowhere to be seen. On the following day the same took place. This order of things continued until the nest was finished. We have observed this with three distinct pairs of birds.' Although the male in his conspicuous coat of black and white sometimes sits, he rarely or never feeds the young - he builds the nest, she feeds the young - a division of labour. Have any other observers noticed this?
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 103-104.
WHITE BROWED SCRUB WREN (Sericornis frontalis, Vigors and Horsfield - 197)
\nGeographical Distribution - Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Kent Group (Bass Strait)
\nNest - Bulky, roundish in shape, with side entrance; somewhat loosely constructed of grass, moss, bark, and dead leaves and fronds; lined inside with fine grass and feathers. Usually placed near the ground in thick scrub or in debris. Dimensions, outward diameter, 5 or 6 inches; entrance, about 1 inch across.
\nEggs - Clutch, three; swollen oval in shape; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour varies from warmish or buffy-white to light purplish-buff, splashed and streaked with short marks of purplish-brown, sometimes chestnut, thickest on the apex, where they coalesce in the form of a zone. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch: (1) .85 x .62, (2) .84 x .64, (3) .84 x .63.
\nObservations - The White-fronted, or more descriptive still, the White-browed, Scrub Hen, is a common species, enjoying a habitat throughout the whole length of Eastern Australia.
\nAccording to the 'British Museum Catalogue' Gould's smaller bird, S. minimus, is merely a northern variety of S. frontalis, and shows very distinctly the white eye-stripes. The question of variation of sub-specific differences in birds is very perplexing to ornithological students. There is another and insular variety of the White-browed Scrub Hen, which was first found during the expedition of the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria to Kent Group, in 1890, for which Colonel Legge has proposed the sub-specific name gularis, (Victorian Naturalist, vol. xiii, p. 84, 1896) on account of its marked difference (darker) on the throat. It has also a conspicuously larger bill, and there are other minor points which serve to distinguish it from the mainland variety.
\nThe White-browed Scrub Wren and the White-naped Honeyeater (Melithreptus lunulatus) were two mainland species of birds, which we found on Kent Group, that are not found in Tasmania.
\nThere are various conjectures as to how the birds first came there. Their progenitors may have been carried to their insular quarters (about forty-five miles from the mainland) by the north-west gales that occasionally prevail. This agency may likewise account for the presence of the European Sparrow on Kent Group, which undoubtedly came from Victoria.
\nAnother cause may be the visitation of great forest fires in Gippsland, such as occurred in 1897-8. Indeed, Captain Simpson, of the steamer 'Thermopylae', did report on that occasion, that when off the Gippsland coast line it was completely obscured, and as immense volumes of smoke curled up from the fires and were blown seawards by a strong land breeze, thousands of insects and hundreds of birds were carried from their haunts far out to sea, numbers alighting on the rigging and decks of the steamer.
\nI have procured White-browed Scrub Hens from the Big Scrub of New South Wales, and have taken many of their nests artfully hidden away in scrub or forest debris in many localities in Victoria, notably in the coastal thickets of tea-tree (Leptospermum), where these birds may be said to be plentiful and breed early, some commencing to lay in August. In the season of 1888 I took three nests with each three eggs, on the 6th August. The following year, in September, I noticed five or six freshly-built nests, and one containing thee fresh eggs.
\nMr. C.F. Belcher reports that at the end of July, 1893, he took six nests, with eggs, of a Sericornis, in the Polygonum scrub, Lake Connewarre. I did not see a skin, but I believe the bird to be referable to this species. Some of the nests were on the ground, others were placed in tea-tree (Melaleuca), at a height varying from seven to eleven feet above ground.
\nAlthough this Scrub Wren usually builds low, I also recollect taking a nest with eggs, ten or twelve feet from the ground, or rather above water, near the tops of some melaleuca, on Phillip Island, Western Port, and October, 1880.
\nBreeding months are July to November or December.
Regarding the White-Browed Scrub Wren, and from knowledge gained through a correspondent in the Heytesbury Forest, Mr. Robert Hall states:- 'Before any sign of a nest was shown, a Sericornis placed a few grasses together in a thick-leafed bush, and continued to increase the mass for thirty minutes, when it discontinued, and gave vent to a number of grating notes to make up for lost vocal time, and appealed to its mate who had been hopping about branches close by watching the operation, for a recognition of its work. This was at 11 a.m., and it then adjourned work till 6 a.m. the following morning, when one hour's work was given to the nest. during the whole of which time a series of peculiar grating calls was given off, and nothing more was done until the same hour of the third morning 18th September, 1896), when the roomy cell of homogeneous plant-matter received the addition of an inner wall of another grassy material (mainly old withered leaves). The bird now made an alteration in its time table, and during the fourth, fifth, and sixth mornings, laboured from about an hour before noon to an hour after, working leisurely throughout the time until the lining was completed. On the seventh day the first egg was laid; colour brownish-purple spots and short streaks on a ground of lighter similar shades. The second egg was deposited on the ninth day of the month, and the third egg on the eleventh. On the fourteenth the bird had set itself to the task of incubation.
'In regular visits to four nests the eggs were found to be laid each forenoon early; the young birds hatched out on the twenty-third day from the time of laying third egg, and the young were able to fly on the fifteenth day from the breaking of the shell. The family immediately begins a nomadic life, and the locality is left to other birds before the morning of the following day. During the time of incubation the sitting bird leaves the nest to feed at early morning and evening, and at night returns with a small feather or some downy plumage, so that gradually the internal layer of its house is completed to it is satisfaction.
\n'In six nests observed in that district, two were lined with fur of rabbits, the others with feathers; all were inclined, with entrance protected from above, and all faced the north-east, which is the fine weather quarter at that period of the year. It was noticeable that the intelligence of the birds led them to build the external portion of their dome nest during rain or in early morning, when the wiry grasses are pliable, and the wet-softened material could be more easily adjusted to the required shape, while the inner layer was constructed at mid-day, when the material was drier.'
\nIllustrations of two nests of the White-browed Scrub Wren are given.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 245-247.
WHITE-HEADED TREE RUNNER
\nSittella Leucocephala, Gould - (374)
\nGeographical Distribution - South Queensland and New South Wales.
\nNest - Neat, small, open, upright; composed of spiders' webs and cocoons, covered outwardly with small pieces of greying bark placed parallel with and resembling the figure of the bark of the branch holding the nest - altogether a wonderful piece of mimicry both as regards colour and form of the nest; inside deep and lined with soft bark, spider and other insect cocoons. Usually situated in an upright, dead, forked branch near the top of a tree. The nest has an elastic tendency, and when removed from its resting-place readily contracts. Dimensions over all, 2 ¼ inches by 2 ½ inches in depth (or to the prong of the branch); egg cavity, 1 ½ inches across by 1 ¼ inches deep.
\nEggs - Clutch, three; roundish in form; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour, greyish-white, boldly blotched and spotted with sepia and slate. The eggs of the various species of Sitelloe are almost insep-arable from each other as far as appearance goes. But the eggs of the White-headed bird are slightly smaller than those of the southern forms. Dimensions in inches of a proper pair; (1) .63 x .51 (1) .62 x .5.
\nObservations - This sprightly Sittella is at home in the more inland portions of Southern Queensland, but it also frequents the northern parts of New South Wales. It is readily separated from its southern congeners by the pure white colouring of the head, hence its appropriate vernacular name; but the Pied Tree Runner has also a white head.
\nDuring my brief sojourn at Coomooboolaroo (Q.), October, 1885, most unfortunately I found the country suffering from the visitation of a disastrous drought. The cattle dead and dying on the station had a depressing effect on a stranger's feelings. What must it have been to the owners, Mr. George Barnard and his sons? As a matter of course, and although the breeding season for birds had fairly commenced, numerous species had not laid. Nothing has such a retarding tendency on the breeding instincts of birds as a droughty season.
\nHowever, strolling alone one day on the margin of a dry Brigalow scrub, I noticed some White-headed Tree Runners attentively examining or working at what appeared to be a notch on a dead topmost branch. This notch on closer inspection I found to be a nest which the little birds were constructing. This was encouraging, for the nest and eggs of this species had not yet been described. A further search in another direction discovered a second nest also in the course of construction. I left the nests as long as I could, even to the day before I left Coomooboolaroo (9th October), when Mr. Harry Barnard kindly ascended the trees and secured me the prizes - a pair of eggs from each nest. Great difficulty attended the taking of one nest, which was in an upright fork of a dead limb. This branch had to be sawn through and lowered gradually till it reached my hands below. Subsequently I made a photograph of it. (see illustration). These finds were reported to and duly recorded by the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria.
\nSubsequently (1889) Mr. North independently described the eggs of the White-headed Sittella from the same locality, and was indebted, as he states, to the late Mr. Geo. Barnard for the same.
\nBreeding season, chiefly the months of September, October and November.
\nResources
\nTranscribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 339-340.
WHITE-SHAVED FANTAIL (Rhipdura albiscapa, Gould - 134)
\nGeographical Distribution - Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
\nNest - Neatly and marvellously made, wine-glass shaped, with the base of the stalk broken off, composed of fine dry grass, but more usually of shreds of fine bark, matted exteriorly with spiders' web, imparting to the nest a greyish appearance; lined inside with soft grass, and sometimes fine, yellowish rootlets, with one or two horse-hairs added, and usually situated a few feet from the ground in warm scrub, where the nest is saddled on a naked horizontal twig (with the tail-like appendage extended underneath the twig upon which the nest is built) of a small sapling or bush, or more frequently on a branchlet overhanging a stream. Dimensions over all, 2-1/2 inches by 1-3/4 inches depth; not including the tai like appendage, 1 to 1-1/2 inches long; egg cavity, 1-1/2 inches across by 1-1/8 inches deep. (See illustration.)
\nEggs - Clutch, two or three; short oval in shape, prominently rounded at top end; texture of shell very fine; surface slightly glossy; colour ,light yellowish-white, mottled and spotted, particularly about the upper quarter, with light-umber or rufous and dull-grey. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch: (1) .67 X .48, (2) .65 X .49, (3) .6 X .45. (Plate 8)
\nObservations - Generally described, this bird has the whole of its upper surface dark-grey; moon or crescent-shaped markings over the eyes and behind the ears, throat, tips of the wing coverts, margin of the secondaries white. Shafts of the tail feathers are also white (hence the vernacular name, White-shafted Fantail); under surface buff; eyes, bill, and feet black; total length, 6-1/2 inches (including tail, 3-3/4 inches.
\nThis exceedingly tame and lively little favourite is distributed over most of the eastern part of Australia, where it is everywhere met, especially in the more heavily-forested parts. The White-shafted Fantail has closely-allied representatives in Northern Australia, Western Australia, and Tasmania; therefore it is again advised that the study of their respective habitats will greatly aid the zoologist in separating the different species.
\nQuite a chapter might be written on this interesting and useful little Fantail and its beautifully-built, small elegant nest - sometimes not much bigger than the bowl of a large smoking pipe - which always attracts attention, particularly the singular ornamental handle or tail that is prolonged downward from the body of the nest.
\nWhen I meditate on those wonderfully-made little nests I always think of the lines, 'A Bird's Nest,' which I learned at school:-
\nIt wins my admiration
To view the structure of that little work -
A Bird's nest. Mark it well within, without;
No tool had he that wrought; no knife to cut;
No nail to fix; no bodkin to insert;
No glue to join; his little beak was all;
And yet how nicely finished! What nice hand,
With every implement and means of art,
And twenty years' apprenticeship to boot,
Could make one such another?
-Hurdis. \n
There are various suggestions about the utility of this tail, which is constructed long or short according to the whim of the bird. If not for ornamental purposes, I believe it is a case of pure mimicry, in which the nest and tail are made to represent an excrescence on the twig, the bird sometimes having to build its nest in exposed situations where food is plentiful; but whether it be essential for the stability of the nest or the safety of its contents, the tail always takes shape early in the construction of the nest. Although the nest proper is perfect for symmetry and neatness, the termination of the tail is frequently slovenly finished off, merely a few shreds of bark hanging by spiders' webs, which any breeze might unravel. The late Mr. T.H. Potts, who gave considerable attention to the Flycatcher of this genus inhabiting New Zealand, believed the affixing of the appendage steadied the nest in exposed yet good positions for a food supply for the young. It is probably in some situations exposed to sudden draughts or gusts of wind , which, agitating the twig, might endanger the safety of the eggs. Mr. Potts asks, 'Would not the resistance offered by this peculiar addition (the tail) lessen any such danger by diminishing the extent of the vibration?'
\nI have taken the pretty homes of the White-shafted Fantail from a variety of romantic situations. The first I ever found was overhanging a clear purling stream that had carved for itself a narrow track through a rich alluvial flat, where tall timber grew. The nest was low down, well under the shelter of one of the banks. In the Big Scrub of New South Wales I took another beautiful nest for two purposes, firstly, to enrich my collection from that locality, and secondly because it stood right in the way between my camera lens and a picturesque waterfall I intended to photograph.
\nMr. Lau writes, of the White-shafted Fantail:- 'This happy little bird may be seen all over the Downs of Queensland, in the open forest as well as in the scrub; but to look for its nest you have to resort to the latter place. In the month of October you may find a receptacle - a most lovely production - the property of this Flycatcher, sometimes within reach, although oft-times ten to twenty feet high in a tree. This nest is exactly the shape of a wine-glass without the foot, manufactured out of fine dry grass connected or enclosed by spiders' web, and lined throughout with fibres or fine rootlets. A nest containing two roundish eggs was taken at Cunningham's Gap, in the Toowoomba Range,1876. The first nest I found, however, was in 1856, at Ullandulla, New South Wales.'
\nWith regard to R. flabellifera of New Zealand, a closely-allied form to the R. albiscapa, the following periods of time noted by Mr. Potts respecting its nidification may apply to the Australian bird, and therefore not be out of place:-
\nOn the 23rd October he found a nest with only the foundation laid. The pair of birds building had a brood of three young ones to feed, hatched from another nest not far away. 27th.- Nest apparently finished and contained one egg. 29th.- Three eggs. 14th November.- Four young hatched. 27th - Young birds quitted their home.
\nSometimes the White-shafted Fantail will pull down a partly-constructed nest and built it elsewhere for no other reason apparently then its having been seen or watched b y some person. This little bird seems to be a favourite foster-parent of the Square-tailed Cuckoo (C. variolosus). The White-shafted Fantail is a late breeder. I have never taken eggs earlier than the 13th October, and have taken them as late as Christmas time. Between these periods probably two or more broods are reared.
\nResources
Transcribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 108-110.
BLACK AND WHITE FANTAIL (Rhipidura Tricolor, Veillot - 139 and 140)
\nGeographical Distribution - Australia in general, also New Guinea, Aru Islands, Solomon Islands and New Ireland.
\nNest - Cup-shaped, neat and symmetrical, with narrow but well-built sides, composed of dried grass or fine shreds of bark, felted outwardly with spiders' webs, some of the webs being worked round and underneath the fork or branch on which the nest is placed; lined inside with finer grass, a few fibrous rootlets, feathers, hair, &c., and usually situated on the dead portion of a low horizontal branch a few feet from the ground, more frequently above water. Dimensions over all, 2 ¾ inches by 1 ¾ inches in depth; egg cavity, 2 ½ inches across by 1 ½ inches deep. (See illustration.)
\nEggs - Clutch, three to four; inclined to be oval in shape, prominently rounded at one end; textured fine; surface slightly glossy; colour, light creamy-buff or yellowish-white, marked and spotted, usually faintly but sometimes boldly, with light-rufous or olive and grey, generally in the form of a belt around the upper quarter. Dimensions in inches of a full clutch: (1) .8 x .57, (2) .79 x .59, (3) .79 x .58, (4) .78 x .6; of a larger-sized pair: (1) .87 x .6, (2) .8 x .6. (Plate 8)
\nObservations - This bird is a simple study in black and white - the general plumage being glossy black relieved with a narrow line over either eye and abdominal parts white. Eyes, bill, and feet are black. Total length 7 ¾ inches, including tail 4 ½ inches and bill ¾ inch.
\nIf we include the smaller race of the north-west part of the Continent,? then the common Black-and-white Fantail is found throughout the whole of the Australia.
\nOne hardly knows where to commence the observations, which are always interesting, of this general favourite, sometimes called 'Wagtail' or 'Shepherd's Companion.' I shall just lead off from Mr. Lau's manuscript. Writing with reference to the Darling Downs, he says: - 'Queensland seems more the home than New South Wales of this lively, intrepid little customer, because, in spite of untiring search in the southern part of the last named State, I was never rewarded with its nest, although I often met with the bird. A lover of water, it courts the friendship of the Magpie Lark (Grallina), often builds with it in the same tree, chases with the Magpie Lark intruders, and finds with it the sustenance of life on the margin of a rivulet. The Fantail dances on the backs of horses, cattle or sheep, in search of parasites, also hopping in the grass before the devouring mouths of such animals, watching for frightened insects ascending from their hiding places. When with the Magpie Lark, the situation of the nest is high; but it builds low enough, frequently over water on the top of so-called snags, on posts, &c. Once in Glenelg I knew of a nest on the stem of a vine before my bed-chamber. In passing by, the birds always greeted me, but one morning the eggs were gone. I swore revenge and laid poison in the nest, which the following morning contained the corpse of a fat lizard. The open nest is neatly formed out of decayed grass and spiders' webs, lined with fibres, and contains three or four eggs. At least three broods are reared in a season, which extends from the end of August or September to December.'
\nI have taken these homely little birds' nests in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, and never particularly noticed, as Gould states, that a living branch always overshadowed the dead branch bearing the nest. Nor have I noticed any particular predilection of the Fantail to nest near a Magpie Lark's home. On one occasion I recollect finding a Fantail's nest with eggs in a small tree growing in a lagoon, near a Grallina's containing young, but there was also in the same tree a nest of the White-rumped Wood Swallow, with a set of beautiful eggs, placed within an old nest of a Grallina.
\nWith their peculiar rattle-like noise and restless actions, the Fantails soon betray the whereabouts of their nests.
\nIn confirmation of Gould and Mr. Lau's other remarks, that the Black-and-white Fantail sometimes rears three broods in a season, a farmer friend took particular notice of a pair near his home, and proved the fact, with the additional original informed that the first two broods, in that instance, were reared from the same nest.
\nA correspondent of the 'Queenslander', who enjoyed opportunities of watching the Black-and-white Fantail building its nest, states: - 'The site chosen for the nest is the horizontal fork of a small dead branch, generally near the tope of a tall tree standing close to water. Occasionally they build in a similar position in a fallen tree, and once I saw nest on the flat beam of a boat-house - a most unusual place. Having decided on a site, they call upon the patient and hard-working spiders, whose carefully-woven nets are torn away. The foundation is made by twisting the cob-webs around, under and across the two sides of the fork. Next a great many trips are made to the banks of the creek. Here they obtain the thread-like roots of plants, which have been exposed by the water washing away the soil. These rootlets, together with strips of soft bark, are twisted round the fork until a cup-like shaped is formed, the bird helping to mould it by turning round and round within the little cup and pushing and working it with its little breast, until the neatest and most perfect cup imaginable is at last formed. Then another visit is paid to the spiders, and with some more of their webs the birds cover the outside. The webs bind the roots together, and also give the net the exact appearance of the dead branch upon which it is placed, so that it quite resembles one of the warts or excrescences so common on our trees. No lining is needed, for the inside is quite soft'.
\nThe Black-and-white Fantail is exceedingly persevering in nest-building. The same correspondent one season notices no less than four nests build and eggs laid therein, which were either destroyed or stolen before the birds reared a brood. In one instance they removed portions of a previous nest to construct a fresh one some distance off.
\nThe history of a home: - 'A pair of 'Shepherds' built their nest in the peach-tree near my window. They started 28th August, had one egg on the 9th September, three by the 11th, and all hatched after dinner on the 26th.' - (E.D.B.)
\nIn the Dandenong district, Victoria, Messrs. Brittlebank and other collectors have on several occasions taken the egg of the Pallid Cuckoo (C. pallidus) from the nest of the Black-and-white Fantail.\nIn the Adelaide Museum there is a curious exhibit, a Black-and-white Fantail's nest built on the loop of a rope.
\nThe breeding months are from September to December, and probably in some localities to January.
\nResources
\nTranscribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. Transcribed from pp. 116-118.
BUTCHER BIRD (Cracticus destructor, Temminick)
\nGeographical Distribution - Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia.
\nNest - Open, basin-shaped, compactly constructed of fine dead twigs, lined with dry yellowish grass or with rootlets, casuarina needles, &c., and usually situated well up inn the forked branches of trees, in mistletoe clusters, &c. Dimensions over all, 7 inches by 31/2 inches in depth; egg cavity, 3-3/4 inches across by 2-1/4 inches deep. (See illustration.)
\nEggs - Clutch, three to five; roundish oval in shape; texture of shell fine; surface glossy; colour varies, sometimes in the same clutch, usually greyish or light-brown, spotted with reddish-brown and dull-slate, the majority of the markings forming a patch on or around the apex. Dimensions in inches of a somewhat small-sized clutch: (1) 1.13 x.86, (2) 1.13 x.85, (3) 1.06 x .84. (Plate 12.)
\nObservations - The common Butcher Bird may be said to enjoy a good range, including the States from Northern Queensland round to South Australia. The Butcher Bird may be described as possessing a dark coat, with the underneath surface greyish-white; the head is black relieved with some white about the face; the powerful bill is bluish horn-coloured, passing into black at the tip, where is a suggestive hooked notch; feet, leaden colour; eyes, dark reddish brown. Total length 11-1/2 inches, wing 5-1/2 inches, tail 4-1/2 inches, and bill 1-1/2 inches.
\nWherever there is a bush paddock, a belt of timber, or an open forest nook, from such a place will be sure to arise during some hour of the day the mellow flute-like notes of the Butcher Bird. Even after its nest has been robbed, it will sometimes favour you with its rich melodious song. However, when alarmed or angry, the bird can utter from the same beautiful voiced throat a harsh guttural scream.
\nMy earliest recollection of Butcher Bird nesting was many years ago, when we found a nest in the Murrumbeena district placed on the woody excrescence at the junction of a mistletoe (Loranthus) with the limb of the foster tree (a eucalypt) - a favourite position for a Butcher Bird's home. Perhaps the most handsome set of eggs I ever took was from a nest situated in a tall sapling near the creek at the rear of Oakleigh. They now grace the collection at the National Museum. The greatest number of eggs (five) I have found in one clutch of this species was on 19th September, 1894, when our genial field naturalist , Mr. Joseph Gabriel, and I were perambulating the fringe of a 'box' flat in Riverina. A quintet is, I believe, frequently taken in Queensland.
\nThe appellation Butcher Bird is well applied to the various Cractici. No doubt they slaughter for food many of the smaller species of birds, in addition to such vermin as small snakes, mice, &c. Once when Lyre Bird nesting in the Dandenongs, I watched from behind a fern tree trunk a Butcher Bird perched on the carcass of a tiger cat, pulling at the pleasant morsels, and every now and again pausing with bill poised in the air, as if enjoying the flavour of the decomposing beast.
\nUsual breeding months are August to November or December, when probably two broods are reared.
\nResources
\nTranscribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. Transcribed from pp. 304-305.
MALLEE FOWL
\nLipoa Ocellata, Gould - (477)
\nGeographical Distribution - New South Wales, Victoria, south and West Australia.
\nNest - A large conical-shaped heap or mound of sand, &c., covering a bed of leaves and other vegetable debris about eight inches in thickness; usually situated in a water track in the dense scrub of sandy tracts, or in reddish ironstone gravel country, such as the Mallee (so names from a species of dwarf eucalyptus which grows there), &c. Dimensions, 10 to 12 feet in diameter at base, or a circum-ference 30 to 40 feet, and height 2 yo 4 feet.
\nEggs - Clutch, twelve to eighteen - other authors seven to eight; long oval in shape or elliptically inclined; texture coarse but shell exceedingly thin; surface without gloss; colour, when first laid, light-pink or pinkish-buff, which on being scratched or removed shows a yellowish-buff ground; this in turn, as incubation proceeds, chip off in patches and reveals a whitish shell. Dimensions in inches of four eggs from the same mound: (1) 3.73 x 2.35, (2) 3.7 x 2.42, (3) 3.52 x 2.26, (4) 3.44 x 2.26. (Plate 18.)
\nObservations - The mound-raising birds are the ornithological curiosities not only of Australia but of the world.
\nThis remarkable and truly solitary Lipoa dwells in the drier and more arid scrubs of Southern Australia generally, being particularly partial to the Mallee (a dwarf species of eucalypt) tracts, hence the vernacular title Mallee Hen.
\nThe Lipoa resembles very much in shape and size a greyish-mottled domestic Turkey, but is slightly smaller, more compact, and stouter in the legs. It has no wattles about its head, but has a small tuft of feathers falling gracefully back from the crown.
\nIn Western Australia the Lipoa has its most northerly range apparently just above the tropical line, the Calvert Expedition having found evidences of the bird between Cue and Separation Well, in the Great North-west Desert. Mr. Tom Carter obtained eggs from the natives, gathered between Wooramel and the Murchison River. The furthest point south touched by the Lipoa is, or rather was (for I fear they have been driven out of the locality or destroyed by foxes), the Brisbane Ranges between Bacchus Marsh and the You Yangs, Victoria. At all events, the birds were there during the season 1887, Mr. A. Cameron, a station employé, having seen a nest, apparently just ready for eggs. He also heard of a person who found another nest containing eggs.
\nWhat a profound pity these wonderful and most interesting birds could not be properly preserved, because they are undoubtedly fast disappearing! I believe I have the record of the last eggs taken in the immediate neighbourhood of Bendigo. That was the season of 1879. I saw eggs that were obtained from a mound in the Bagshot forest. Formerly the birds were plentiful further north in the Whipstick scrub. During the Whipstick rush (1861) birds were exposed for sale in the poulterers' shops in Bendigo.
\nThe aborigines in the Bendigo district, which are now, like the bird, defunct, called the creature 'Low-an-ee.' Mr. F. R. Godfrey recollects hearing the natives of the Lower Loddon call the bird 'Louan.' The great shire of Lowan, in the Wimmera district, derives its title from the native name of the bird. In Western Australia the Lipoa was first called by the trivial name 'Native Pheasant', but is now usually known by its nave name 'Ngow' or 'Nau'. Gould states other Western tribes called the bird 'Ngoweer' signifying a tuft of feathers.
\nDecidedly the most peculiar feature in the economy of the Lipoa, or Mallee Hen, is that it does not incubate its eggs in the usual manner, but deposits them in a large mound of sand, where they are hatched by the action of thee sun's rays, together with the heat engendered by the decomposing vegetation placed underneath the sand and eggs. In constructing a new nest or mound, a slight hollow, usually a water track or shallow gully, is selected, in almost impenetrable scrub. The spot is further hollowed or scooped out, and filled with dead leaves and other vegetable matter. Then all is completely enveloped with sand, which is scraped up for several yards around.
\nAbout the end of April or the beginning of May both birds (male and female) commence to clear out their old mound or construct a new one, which is then left open until June or July (the late Mr. K. H. Bennett states October)* when leaves, &c., are gathered and placed therein. After the leaves are thoroughly saturated by the winter rains, they are covered up with the sand. The fact that the mound is usually situated in a shallow course or slight gully, further insures the vegetation becoming thoroughly soaked. The female commences to lay in September, or usually October.
\nTwo or three inches of dry loose sand are thrown over the leaves, then tier or layer of four eggs (Gould states eight) is deposited, each placed perpendicularly on the smaller end. The four eggs are in the form of a square, four or five inches apart. An inch or two more sand covers them, and another tier of eggs is placed opposite the interstices of the sub-tier, and so on, till the complement is reached, three or four tiers amounting to between twelve and sixteen eggs. Mr. Charles McLennan, who has enjoyed exceptional experiences with Mallee Hens' mounds, tells me there are always four eggs in the bottom tier, but sometimes six in the other tiers, except the topmost tier, which finishes with one only, the number of tiers being usually three, occasionally four. The centre or portion in the heart of the mound containing the circle of eggs is about fourteen inches in diameter. One of Gould's informants, Sir George Grey, who first mentioned the singular position of the egg, states: - 'When an egg is to be deposited, the top of the mound is laid open, and a hole scraped in its centre, to within two or three inches of the bottom (? Top) of the layer of dead leaves. The egg is placed in the sand just at the edge of the hole, in a vertical position, with the smaller end downwards. The sand is then thrown in again, and the mound left in its original form . . . When a second egg is laid it is deposited in precisely the same plane as the first, but at the opposite side of the hole, before alluded to. When a third egg is laid it is placed in the same plane as the others, but, as it were, at the third corner of a square. When the fourth egg is laid, it is still placed in the same plane, but in the fourth corner of the square, the figure being of this form - : the next four eggs in succession are placed in the interstices, but always in the same plane (?), so at last there is a circle of eight eggs, with several inches of sand intervening between each'.**
\nIn one mound opened by Sir George Grey, which, however, had been previously robbed of several eggs, he found two eggs opposite each other in the same plane, and a third egg four and a-half inches below them, a circumstance which he says 'led me to imagine it was possible that there might be some-times successive circles of eggs in different planes.'
\nMr. F. R. Godfrey states:- 'I have more than once seen a second tier of eggs exactly above the lower, but this is a rare occurrence, and sets one puzzling how the birds that are first hatched, which of course occupy the lower story, can get out of their prison without disturbing those immediately above them.'
\nDuring laying time an egg is deposited every third day. A great amount of toil devolves upon the hen, assisted by her mate, because they have to dismantle and rebuild a large portion of the mound at the laying of each egg. A mound containing eggs is always left conical shaped in dull or wet weather, but in warm sunny days the top is somewhat hollowed like a miniature extinct volcano, which enables the heat from the sun's rays to concentrate and penetrate the centre among the eggs, therefore when covered up by the owners before sundown, the heat so absorbed is retained for a lengthened period. Mr. C. McLennan says:- 'I have been taking particular notice of them (Mallee Hens), for I love to watch them at work. They have a habit of flattening out their nest about 10 o'clock a.m.., in order to admit the heat of the sun, and about 3 p.m. they build the mound up again.' He never saw more than a pair of birds (male and female) working at the nest.
\nIn building and razing the mounds the birds use their strong fee for scraping, but the loose sand is swept up and impelled forward by the aid of the breast and wings.
\nThe eggs, which are laid between 9 and 10 o'clock in the morning (not at day-break, as stated by one writer), are placed in their perpendicular position by the parent by the aid of its feet, scraping up the sand first on one side, then the other. From the position of the eggs, an as a natural consequence, the chicks are hatched in an upright attitude, their legs drawn up in front, and toes near their back; therefore, it may seem an easy matter when the young are delivered from the shell to wriggle through the running sand, and so free themselves from this great earthen womb. It need no longer be a disputed point whether or not the young are assisted out by their parents.
\nSir George Grey (in Gould) states, from information most probably received from the blacks, that 'the young one scratches its way out alone; the mother does not assist it. They usually come out one at a time; occasionally a pair appear together. The mother, who is feeding in the scrub in the vicinity, hears its call and runs to it. She then takes care of the young one as a domestic hen does of its chick. When the young are all hatched, the mother is accompanied by eight or ten young ones, who remain with her until they are more than half-grown.' The last part of this statement is questionable. The young can fly from birth, and probably lead an existence independent of their parents. Mr. Bennett, from careful observations, entertained the belief that the young Mallee Hen can liberate itself from the mound, mentioning that on many occasions, when opening mounds, he has found the chick so near the surface that in a few minutes more it would have effected its escape unaided. Mr. Bennett argues if the chicks by their own exertions could come up from the lower layer to where he had unearthed them, they could certainly have passed through the few inches of loose sand near the top.
\nFurther, the following is conclusive evidence, I think, that the Lipoa chick does liberate itself from the hatching mound. In answer to a direct question of mine, Mr. Charles McLennan, who has had twenty odd years' experience, trapping, &c., in the Mallee, replies: 'There is no doubt that the young ones can get out themselves, for when I was standing near a mound one day I saw a young one come up through the sand, and I have found them very near the top of the mound.' Subsequently, Mr. McLennan wrote: 'I have seen a good many young birds work their way out of the mound lately.'
\nBy way of experiment, Mr. Dudley Le Souëf had a piece of wire netting placed round a mound that con-tained eggs. Result: none of the young emerged, but died in their shells. This may seem to prove that the parents must assist the young out. They probably do so indirectly by visiting the mound occasionally and working at it, thus keeping the soil loose and friable. In the case of the mound wired-in by Mr. Le Souëf, the sand had evidently become set or hardened for want of attention, and thus prevented the escape of the young at the proper time.
\nWith regard to the birds frequently visiting the egg mound to repair damages, &c., Mr. Bennett states:- 'I may mention that on one occasion I opened a nest about 10 o'clock in the morning, which contained three eggs. I took one, as I knew from its delicate colour that it was quite fresh. I left the nest open, and having occasion to repass it about two hours afterwards, I found the bird had in my absence made it up again. Thinking it might be possible that the egg I had taken was not the morning's laying, I again opened the nest, but there were the two eggs only. This time I opened the mound to a much greater extent, drawing the sand back to a considerable distance and again leaving it open. Shortly before sun-down I returned to the nest again and found all damage repaired.'
\nAs previously mentioned, the laying season usually commences about the beginning of September, and extends through the two following months, consequently, as the female approaches the complement of her eggs, in the one mound eggs are found in various stages of incubation. The duration of the period of incubation has not yet been determined. I have hazarded the opinion that it is probably about six weeks (some observers say five)*** for the following reasons: - First, my brother, Mr. W. R. G. Campbell, during his residence in the Mallee country, observed a mound containing thirteen eggs and newly-hatched chicks. Now, as the bird lays two eggs a week (or one every third or fourth day), that would give about six weeks from the time the first egg was laid until the first appearance of young. Second, as some of the later laying birds finish their clutch about the end of November, the last of the young has been observed emerging from mounds about the middle of January.
\nWe have accepted the usual breeding time of the Mallee Hen, from September to January, under normal conditions, but, as Mr. Bennett has pointed out, the laying period is regulated by the character of the season or rains. I believe eggs have been taken in New South Wales in July.
\nGilbert, in the Wongan Hills, Western Australia, took the first Mallee Hens he ever found on the 28th September (1842). Mr. T. Carter, further north, on the Murchison, has seen eggs in the hands of the natives 20th September. The season (1884) I visited the Mallee, in Victoria, laying commenced also in September. The season of 1888 another collector watched eighteen Mallee Hen mounds, and none contained an egg before the middle of October. Then again, taking thee terminal end of the laying season, and still in the same district (Wimmera), Mr. A. Esdaile, about the 27th March, found young birds just emerging from the shell; and later still, Mr. E. H. Hill, writing from Bendigo, under date 19th May, 1895, says: 'A pair of Mallee Hen's eggs were brought to the School of Mines from Boort, said to have been taken from the mound last Sunday. I blew them myself, and one was perfectly fresh, though the other was addled.'
\nTouching the complement of eggs to a mound, Gilbert stated that Mr. Roe, the Surveyor-General, who examined several mounds during his expedition to the interior, 1836, found the eggs nearly ready to hatch in November, and invariably seven or eight in number, while another authority informed him of an instance of fourteen being taken from one mound. Sir George Grey, also mentioned by Gould, says eight to ten eggs are laid, and if the mound is robbed, the female will lay again in the same nest, but will only lay the full number of eggs twice in a season. My brother, already mentioned, found thirteen eggs, some just hatched, in one instance. On one occasion, in the Mallee (Victoria), Mr. Charles McLennan states he found the extraordinary number of twenty eggs in a mound at one time, but, he adds, five of them were stale. Mr. James Macdougall, writing from Yorke Peninsula, South Australia, states: - 'The Mallee Hen breeds on the northern part of the Peninsula, where the mallee is tall, dense, and almost impenetrable to man. I was fortunate to meet a farmer, November, 1885, with a dozen eggs, which he had just obtained from a mound.' By far the finest lot I ever saw from the one mound was eighteen in the collection of Mr. W. White, Reedbeds, South Australia. They were all in the 'pink of perfection,' and apparently taken as they were deposited. The measurements varied from 3.68 to 3.36 x 2.38 to 2.27 inches.
\nMr. Dudley Le Souëf informs me that the Mallee Hen will thrive in confinement, but does not as a rule attempt to make a mound.
\nThere is nothing like personal experience, and as the Mallee Hen is so replete with fascinating interest, even at the risk of being tedious, I here give a brief account, the substance of which I read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 8th December, 1884, of a day's outing enjoyed in virgin mallee scrub of the Wimmera district of Victoria, when I was in quest of the Hen's eggs.
\n\n*I received a communication from Mr. K. H. Bennett, in which he writes:- \"The paid of the nidification of the Mallee Hen appears to differ somewhat in Victoria, for I have never known them here (Mossgiel, N.S.W.) to commence con-structing their nests earlier than the middle of September (more frequently in October), whilst I have taken fresh eggs on several occasions from nests as late as the middle of March. I think the difference in time may be accounted for by the fact that the winters here are as a rule dry, the rain coming usually during the months of September and October, but it mainly depends on the season. During years of drought the birds do not nest at all, instinct apparently teaching them that without rain the attempt would be a failure.'
\n**Since writing my observations on the Mallee Hen, Dr. C. S. Ryan has kindly showed me a photograph which he took of a mound partly opened, exposing the top portions of eight eggs. They form an irregular circle, and are apparently nearly all about the same plane. - (A.J.C.)
\n***Since writing this statement, Mr. M. McLennan, at my suggestion, made the satisfactory observations that a fresh egg, marked on the 2nd October (1898), was hatched on or about the 12th November, or 41 days afterwards; another egg, marked on 4th November, he found hatched on the 12th December, or 38 days afterwards. \n
Resources
\nTranscribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, transcribed from pp. 698-708.
SPOTTED BOWER BIRD (Chlamydera maculate, Gould)
\nGeographical Distribution - Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia.
\nNest - Flat, somewhat concave; loosely constructed of dead twigs or fine sticks; lined inside with finer twigs and grass; usually situated in a thick bush or tree in open forest country. Sometimes the nest is so frail that the contents may be seen through the structure from underneath. Dimensions over all of a good nest, 9 to 10 inches by 6 inches in depth; egg cavity, 4 inches across by 2 inches deep.
\nEggs - Clutch, two, occasionally three; shape inclined to oval, or long oval; texture and shell fine; surface slightly glossy; ground-colour light greenish-yellow. There are three distinct characters of markings, firstly, light-greyish blotches appearing on the inner surface of the shell; secondly, small stripes or hair-like lines of light-sienna and umber, as if painted with a camel-hair brush, in every shape and size round shell, principally zig-zagged latitudinally, but often taking longitudinal and other directions; and, lastly, over these a few darker and heavier stripes and smudges of umber. Both ends of the eggs are comparatively free from markings. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch: (1) 1.64 x 1.04, (2) 1.63 x 1.05, (3) 1.55 x 1.04; a pair with more of the yellowish-white ground, and with both ends much freer from markings, measures (1) 1.57 x 1.06, (2) 1.5 x 1.07. (Plate 9.)
\nThe eggs are very beautiful and most singular in appearance, resembling fine porcelain with hand-painted markings.
\nObservations - The beautiful spotted Bower Bird is a dweller of the dry interior provinces.
\nIn a Riverina timber belt, how venerable and dark the cone-shaped pines (Callitris) appear, with every branch and branchlet, dead and living, bedecked with ornamental lichens! Their sombre character is relieved by the interspacing silvery, needle-like foliage of hakea trees of lower growth, bearing a crop of curiously-fashioned seed-balls; a species of acacia with short stiff leaves and with the wood not unlike the West Australian jam-wood for aroma, by its floral stores is celebrating \"Yellow-haired September;\" the quondong tree (Santalum), whose pendulous foliage clings likes skirts about its dark rough stem, is also seen, besides other dwarf trees called by lengthy botanical names; while all around the rich, red ground, well-grassed, sparkles with the flowers of small white immortelles, - such is the home of the Spotted Bower Bird as I saw it once in spring.
\nThere has been some discussion as to who first found the genuine eggs of the Spotted Bower Bird. I believe (and it is only my belief , without any direct proof, and therefore I am open to correction) that some of the earlier recorded finds, especially those on the coast of the northern portion of New South Wales, were none other than the eggs of the Regent Bird (Sericulus melinus). These coastal scrubs are the stronghold of the Regent Bird, whereas the Spotted Bower Bird, as I have stated, seeks generally the dry and arid parts of the interior. I have also the testimony of a keen observer inn the former locality that the Spotted Bower Bird is scarce there. Moreover, nothing would b e easier, at first sight, than to mistake a female Regent Bird for a Spotted Bower Bird when flushed from the nest. Probably the first discovered egg of the Spotted Bower Bird was obtained by Mr. A. N. Foot, in Queensland, and was exhibited by Dr. G. Bennett, of Sydney, at a meeting of the London Zoological Society, held 3rd June, 1873.
\nAnother of the first authenticated eggs discovered of the Spotted Bower Birds found by Mr. J.B. White, and described by Dr. Ramsay, vide Proceedings of Zoological Society, 1874. The same year (1874) Mr. Hermann Lau discovered a nest of this Bower Bird near Whitstone, South Queensland. I shall quote his original and interesting note:-
\n'This bird makes for the fruit when it ripens in the garden, especially the figs. The scrub, where it comes from, grows on a sandy bottom in the neighbourhood of the station. In this scrub I several times espied the bower of the bird, not like the edifice of the Satin Bird, which is closed on the top, but open. A cartful of bones* - the vertebrae of sheep predominating - pieces of glass, unripe wild fruit, even a shilling, sometimes betray the entrance of the bower.
\n'While bathing one afternoon in M'Intyre Creek, half-a-mile from the scrub, I observed a Bower Bird flying with a caterpillar in its bill. After dressing, I followed in the direction, and found its nest high in a tea-tree (Melaleuca) over the water, and procuring a ladder, beheld two young in the nest. Eventually I took the nest and young home, feeding the young for two months, as long as the season lasted, but at last they died.
\n'At the same place (Whitstone) I again got a nest with two eggs. December 1874. The nest represents small sticks, like that of a pigeon, but lined with grass, &c.'
\nWhen Mr. Lau was returning to his fatherland, this particular nest and eggs found a secure resting-place in the beautiful collection of Mr. D. Le Souëf, at the Royal Park, Melbourne.
\nAbout the end of October, 1877, while searching for specimens along a billabong f the River Darling, not far from Wentworth, New South Wales, I found a nest, about twenty feet from the ground, near the top of a red gum (Eucalyptus) sapling in a belt of timber. A bird (probably the hen) was sitting, and did not leave until I had climbed close to it. The nest was loosely composed of sticks and twigs, and lined inside with finer twigs and grass, and contained one fresh egg, the most remarkable for beauty and wonderful character of it is markings that it has ever been my fortune to find.
\nA nest of the Spotted Bower Bird was pointed out to me, from which a pair of beautiful eggs was taken on the 14th November, 1894. The nest was the usual frail structure, built at the height of about thirty feet from the ground, near the top of a pine tree (Callistris). The tree was situated about two hundred yards from a dwelling on Neimur Creek, Riverina, and was discovered by one of the lads tracking the bird while carrying a twig to construct its nest. The eggs, which are a light-coloured type, are now in the collection of Mr. Joseph Gabriel, Abbotsford, Victoria.
\nThe Spotted Bower Bird occasionally lays three eggs. Mr. R. MacFarlane, formerly of the Mallee Cliffs Station, New South Wales, found a nest containing three eggs in a needle-bush (Hakea). While the specimens awaited a favourable opportunity to be sent to Melbourne for my collection, the station cook it, is supposed, took a fancy to them, for they somehow mysteriously disappeared. Again, Mr. W. L. Hutton, writing to me from Lessington, near Bourke, says: - 'I saw three nests of the Bower Bird last season (1895), one of which had three eggs in it.' In Queensland, Mr W.B. Barnard found on the 12th December, 1897, an exceedingly handsome set of three eggs, now in my collection. The following is Mr. Barnard's field note concerning them: - I was travelling with a mob of cattle, and while coming through Moura run I found the nest in a sandal-wood tree, about fifteen feet from the ground. I could see the eggs through the nest from underneath. The old bird seemed shy, as she would not come near. Later in the day I found another nest, but it contained three young half-fledged. The nest was in a brigalow (species of acacia), about thirty-five feet from the ground.'
\nThe note of the Spotted Bower Bird is somewhat harsh and scolding. But it is not generally known, nor has it been properly recorded, that these birds are accomplished mocking creatures, as several of my bush friends can attest. The Misses Macaulay, of 'Bannockburn,' Riverina, had one or two birds which, at certain seasons, regularly between ten o'clock in the morning and two in the afternoon, used to visit the pepper trees in the garden, where the birds were heard imitating the calls of the noisy Miner (Misantha), Magpie (Gymnorhina), the Raven, but not quite so hoarsely, and Babblers (Pomatostomus); while the screech of the Whistling Eagle was so realistic as to cause a domestic hen and chickens to fly for cover, although no bird of prey was nigh. The Bower Bird also reproduces well the sound of a maul striking the splitter's wedge, and other familiar sounds, such as the mewing of cats, barking of dogs, &c.
\nMr. G. H. Morton, of Benjeroop, relates an amusing experience regarding the mimicry of the Spotted Bower Bird. His neighbour had been driving cattle to a given place, and on his way back discovered a nest in a prickly needle-bush or hakea tree. In 'threading' the needle branches after the nest, he thought he heard cattle breaking through the scrub, and the barking of dogs in the distance, and at once fancies his cattle had broken away, but could see no signs of anything wrong. He heard other peculiar noises, and glancing at his dog, as much as to say, 'What does that mean?' he saw the sagacious animal, with his head partly upturned, eyeing a Bower Bird perched in the next tree.
\nAlthough Gould has cleverly described the bower of this species, and, moreover, succeeded in taking one to England, which is now in the British Museum, and other authors have mentioned these wonderful creatures, without unnecessarily extending the present observations I may state that during our memorable 'flood' trip through Riverina, September, 1893, Mr. J. Gabriel and I embraced the opportunity of examining on the Pine Ridges six of the avenues or playing-grounds - all apparently in use - of the Spotted Bower Bird. Some of these singular structures we successfully photographed. They were under bushes, usually the prickly bursaria, and consisted of a pair of parallel walls of sticks, grass, &c., stuck into the ground on end, and heaped about wit bones, chiefly placed about either entrance. I give details of three of these bowers, which may be taken as types.
\nUnder a clump of bursaria bushes, with thistles and other vegetation grown near - platform or approach larger at one entrance. Space immediately around the bower and centre of avenue-like walk composed of dead twigs, well trampled down. Exterior portion of walls composed of twigs; interior side of walls composed of yellowish grass stalks, with the seedling parts uppermost. Number of bones - leg bones, ribs, and vertebrae of sheep - ninety at one entrance, ninety-two at the opposite. Inside the bower were twenty-four bones. Other decorations inside and round about were - pieces of glass, twenty-four; hakea seeds, thirty; quondong (Santalum) seeds, four; and green pine branchlets, two.
\nAt the edge of the mallee (species of Eucalyptus) scrub, under bursaria bushes, with pines and bull-oaks (Casuarina) near. Bones placed just at entrances; bower somewhat open, and concaved towards the centre of the floor; built principally of a species of coarse tussocky grass and casuarina needles or foliage. (See illustration.)
\nSituated under native hop bush, and slightly curved in shape; principally constructed of coarse tussocky grass and casuarina needles, with a few branching twigs placed outermost. Usual heap of bones at either entrance, also bits of glass, quondong, hakea, and other seeds, portions of pig-face weed (Mesembryanthemum), pieces of Emu egg-shell, &c. In centre a handful of bones (fifteen) and quondong seeds (eight).
\nStatement showing the dimensions in inches of three ordinary-sized play-grounds or bowers of the Spotted Bower Bird:-
\nTotal Length of Play-Ground
\n62
\t\t\t\t\t\n42
\t\t\t\t\t\n63
\t\t\t\t\t\n\n
Length of Bower
\n17
\n18
\n27
Breadth of Bower from Outside Walls
\n20
\n16-17
\n27
Width Inside
\n6-7
\n7-8
\n6-9
Height of Walls
\n15
\n12
\n10-12
Thickness of Walls
\n5-6
\n4-5
\n8-9
Lost jewellery, coin of the realm, &c., have often been recovered at bowers. It is said that any decorations of the bower by human hands is resented by the birds, the items, however beautiful, being thrown out. However, if the bones, &c., belonging to the bower be scattered, the birds will always gather them together again.
\nIt has always been stated, but I have not been able to verify it, that this Bower Bird discriminates colours, and that it will carry nothing of a bright-red nature to its play-ground.
\nWith reference to Gould's C. occipitalis, Dr. Ramsay, who has examined the type, pronounces it to be only a fine-plumaged adult male of C. maculata.
\nResources
\nTranscribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 198-202.
VICTORIA RIFLE BIRD, (Ptilorhis Victoriae, Gould - 364)
\nGeographical Distribution - North Queensland, including Barnard Islands.
\nNest - Oval in shape, open, shallow; somewhat loosely constructed of tough branching rootlets and a few broad dead leaves and tendrils of climbing plants; lined inside with a layer of broad leaves, upon which are placed portions of very fine twigs. Usually situated in dense scrub. Dimensions over all, 8 inches longest breadth, shortest breadth 6 or 7 inches by 3½ inches in depth; egg cavity 4 inches across by 1½ inches deep (See illustration.) \n
Eggs - Clutch, two; blunt or stout oval in shape; texture of shell somewhat fine; surface glossy, with a few crease-like lines running lengthwise; colour of a fleshy tint, streaked in various lengths and breadths longitudinally with rich reddish-brown and purplish-brown. The markings commence near the apex, which is bare or nearly so, extend about half-way down the shell and assume the appearance of having been painted on (boldly at the top and tapering downwards) with a camel-hair brush. Some of the markings are confluent, and appear as having been painted over each other. In one example, the longest single marking measured 0.48 inch by a breadth of 0.09 inch. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch: (1) 1.24 x .92, (2) 1.24 x .89. \n
The type specimen of these beautiful eggs described by me in the Victorian Naturalist: 1892, figured by Mr. D. Le Souëf in the Proc. Roy. Soc. Vict. the same year, and now in the Australian Museum, has, in addition to the above-mentioned markings, a few small spots near the lower quarter and one large blotch of rich reddish-brown which has a smudged appearance. Dimensions in inches: 1.23 x .09.
\nObservations - This, the smallest, but none the less gorgeous of the Rifle Birds or Plumeless Birds of Paradise, is a dweller of the rich tropical scrubs of Northern Queensland, and its habitat is intermediate between the Rifle Bird of New South Wales and Queensland, and the Albert Rifle Bird of Cape York, being a limited strip of country of about 250 miles, extending from the Herbert River scrubs in the south into York Peninsula about the Bloomfield River district in the north. \n
Macgillivray, when surveying the North-east coast of Australia, discovered the Victoria Rifle Bird on the Barnard Islands and on the adjacent shores of the mainland at Rockingham Bay. On the islands he found three young males fighting, which he bagged with a single charge of dust shot.
\nMr. Kendall Broadbent, who is undoubtedly a good 'field' authority on our northern scrubs, gives some very interesting details of the Victoria Rifle Bird. He found the bird in the mountainous districts inland from Cardwell even more numerous on the western fall of the range than anywhere else. In its peculiar district it is so common that Mr. Broadbent has seen as many as eight male birds while merely riding along the road through the scrub. The birds attain their full size the second year, but the plumage of the male is not perfect until the third year.
\nDuring the months of July, August and September (which Mr. Broadbent considered were the breeding season) the male bird is continually on the move, flying or hopping, and calling almost incessantly. On this latter account he is most easily obtained at this time of the year. After September, Mr. Broadbent relates, the male is very quiet, a fact that I thing would suggest its breeding season had only commenced, which, by subsequent discovery by other collectors of several nests with eggs, proved to be the case. The play-grounds and habits of the Victoria Rifle Bird are indeed remarkable, and aid is proving the affinity of Rifle Birds with Bower Birds. Mr. Broadbent proceeds to state: - 'Each male bird, as though by mutual agreement, has possession of a fixed domain, possibly some hundreds of yards in extent. In this area he has absolute rule - that is, as far as he can rule - and, if another male should enter on the ground, a fight ensues, the victor remaining in possession.
\n'A further interesting fact in this connection is the 'play-ground' used by each male bird. In early morning the bird resorts to his play-ground and there sports himself, now spreading his wings and rubbing them against the surface of the play-ground, and then whirling round with wings expanded. This he sometimes keeps up for a long a half-an-hour. No trouble is taken in preparing the ground, as in the case of the Bower Birds with their wonderful bowers. The bird simply selects the broken limb of a dead bum on the border of the scrub, a broken palm, or perhaps a dead stump; but, having chosen this, here he returns at dawn day after day, especially in (? before) the breeding season. Once having seen a bird at play in such a place, it is no difficult matter to obtain it is future; in this way I once procured a specimen which had selected a tree stump for its 'ground', and at a later date secured a second bird which had seemingly inherited the vacant property.'
\nOne of the chief objects of my trip to Queensland in 1885 was to gain, if possible, some information respecting the nidification of this Rifle Bird, which was up to that time a sealed book, or one of Nature's secrets. Although I did not succeed in procuring eggs, I had better give the story of our glorious outing amongst the birds themselves as it appeared in the columns of The Australasian, under the title to 'A Naturalists' Camp in Northern Queensland,: my companions being Messrs. A. and F. Coles, Melbourne, and Mr. A. Gulliver, Townsville: -
\n'While encamped at Cardwell, we determined to see the Rifle Bird in its native element, and, if possible, procure skins, and, as the Rockingham By variety was rarest, we were doubly anxious for success. Having failed to observe any of these birds on the mainland, and knowing that they were tolerably plentiful on some isolated islands up the coast, we resolved to enlist our friend, Mr. Walsh, sub-collector of Customs, into our services. We had no sooner made known our errand than he replied a trip could be capitally arranged, because he had officially to visit that part of the coast, and could go with us in the pilot cutter. It was a delightful morning as we left the camp behind and briskly 'pegged out' for town, where we arrived at half-past eight o'clock. The tide was unfavourable, and we did not get aboard till two hours later. Leaving port we had a fair wind, but when we got outside the bold land of Hinchinbrook Island the weather was rather dirty, with a strong south-each wind. We soon reached the Family Islands, a group of five, with slopes more or less grassed to the water's edge, where the blue sparkling water, grey rock, and green sward formed agreeable contrasts. Dunk Island was passed on the weather side, then King's Reef, which runs between Clump Point on the mainland and the two South Barnard Islands.
\nAfter a fair run of thirty-five miles we made the North Barnard, a group of five islets lying at various distances up to two-and-a-half miles from the mainland, and dropped anchor at about half-past four o'clock to the leeward of the largest and outermost island. Here our little craft strained at her anchor, pitching and tossing all night, much to the discomfort of invalided passengers. At sunrise nest morning our skipper pronounced the surf too great to enable the dinghy to land us with safety. This news was a great disappointment to us, especially as we were only a few cables' length from our much-coveted goal, so we decided to run for Mourilyan Harbour, on the mainland, distant about five miles, to wait until the weather moderated.
\n'Next morning at daybreak it looked calm outside, with a gentle land breeze we quietly slipped out, and before breakfast were once again riding at anchor off the outer Barnard. The island rises out of the Coral Sea to an elevation of about three hundred feet. It is half-a-mile long by a quarter broad, and enshrouded in luxuriant vegetation. Trees great and small show above the prevailing dense scrub. Although we appeared to be close in shore, it was a long row in the dinghy. A curling wave shot us on to the coral strand, which was bordered at hight-water mark with large, strongly-perfumed lilies (Crinum asiaticum), growing from broad flat-like leaves. A beautiful convolvulus (pomoa) of blue and purple festooned the nearer bushes. Up the face of the island large, noble and beautiful trees, the botanical name of which we had not learnt, met our gaze, contrasted with figs (Ficus magnifolia), Pongamia glabra, bearing large seed pods, and Ixora timorensis in flower, interlaced with small species of lawyer palm, and overgrown with innumerable creepers, pothos, and other climbers. I clambered up the face of a rough, rocky surface, with loose dark mould, sustaining crops of bird-nest ferns among vines and supplejacks; progress was rendered not only slow but difficult. When about half-way towards the summit of the island, I moved across the face and dipped into one of the numerous gullies or hollows which ran down to the sea. Here, with a fair outlook up and down hill, I waited the turn of events. Presently in the thicket I heard 'scrape'. My breechloader brought down through an entanglement of vegetation my first Rifle Bird - a female. After remaining in ambush some time I secured another female and returned to the strand, where I met the other members of the party in great ecstasies over a lovely male bird.
\n'Luncheon over, we took to the scrub, which was now uncomfortably damp from passing showers. After scrambling about until the perspiration was literally rolling off me, and as it had commenced to rain in earnest - real tropical showers - I thought, instead of chasing the birds, I would try an experiment and let them chase me. The idea was good, because after I had waited for some time there flew past me a lustrous black bird with rounded wings and of compact appearance. During flight its feathers produced a peculiar rustling noise like a new silk dress. Between thirty and forty yards off it alighted, and darted behind some green branches. In an instant, reckoning on the intervening obstruction, I discharged No.6 instead of dust shot. I was immediately surrounded by thick smoke hanging in the damp air, but whether my beautiful feathered visitor had fallen or flown I knew not. Overcome with excitement, I felt as if I could hardly venture to ascertain. I crawled slowly up the gully through prickly creepers, and on parting a bush there I beheld a gorgeous male Rifle Bird, dead, upon its back. It was a beautiful object in its rich shining garb.
\n'Two males and one hen fell to the second member of the party. The botanist was a long time in showing up, so we conjectured that he was either lost or had obtained a big bag. Both surmises proved correct. Every attempt he made to reach the beach he found himself on the wrong side of the island, but during his wanderings he 'bagged' no less than three males and seven hens. When he emerged from the scrub he looked a woebegone sight, dripping wet, scratched and bleeding, hair over his forehead, with gun in one hand, while under the other arm were the birds carefully rolled up in his hat. We enjoyed a hearty laugh. We soon got afloat, changed our clothes, and refreshed ourselves with a warm supper. Then followed the reckoning of the day's work - grand total, seventeen Birds of Paradise - the greatest day's taking of rarities recorded in the annals of Australian ornithology. Certainly it was a most unfortunate day for the poor birds, and for their sake let us hope it may never occur again. We were the best part of the night turning our booty into skins. The weight of one of the birds was a little over two ounces. About midnight we left our anchorage, and turned the cutter's nose towards Cardwell, wishing to reach port before Sunday. Good headway was made at the beginning but at sunrise the wind died almost away, and we drifted on leisurely, aided by wind puffs and tides. It was a most charming day - above a cloudless vault, below the ocean, true to its name, Pacific. Lovely islands were slowly passed, behind which could be seen the mainland melting into distance. Taking all things into consideration, especially the unqualified success of the object of our cruise, we felt supremely happy.
\n'The success we met with during the eight hours we spent among the Rifle Birds only whetted our appetites for more information, especially as the dissection of one female bird proved that the breeding season had commence, and the finding of a nest would be the greatest oological discovery of the day. Therefore we agreed to undertake another trip.
\n'The Burdekin steamer (Captain J. Keir), a regular northern trader, was due at Cardwell from the south, and gave us the chance of staying two days at the islands. Terms were soon agreed upon, and once more our party left Cardwell. We were provided with a tent and a breaker of fresh water, the island being without springs.
\n'The steamer arrived abreast of our island shortly after three o'clock. The captain put us into the steamer's boat, and in landing we had much difficulty in keeping our paraphernalia dry on account of the surf. Our tent was pitched between two palm-like pandanus trees, surrounded by strongly-perfumed lilies and thick foliage, adorned with convolvulus. The richly-wooded slopes of the island completely sheltered us on the windward side. Being in the Coral Sea, and under the protecting influence of the Great Barrier Reef, whose nearest edges were not more than ten miles off, we felt perfectly secure in our insular quarters. Winds might blow and storms beat, but no great billows can ever disturb these tranquil shores. The islet we were on had not been specifically names before, so during a passing shower, in the name of all that is beautiful in nature we christened it 'Ptilorhis,' that being the name of the lovely Rifle Bird so abundant in its scrubs. Notwithstanding the evening being showery, we climbed to the summit of Ptilorhis Island but the result was nil. In our tent we spent a tolerably refreshing night, somewhat broken, however, by the annoyance caused by numerous indigenous bush rats, which are not quite so large as common city vermin. They are known as the long-haired rat (Mus longipilus) of Gould. These rats had not seen human being before, for they made themselves so uncommonly familiar as to run over our bodies. A pistol was discharged among them. The echo of the report from the island opposite had barely died away before the impertinent intruders were at their little games again.
\n'Wednesday, September 9th, was a bright day in our calendar. By daylight and before breakfast we entered the wet scrub, and were rewarded with a brace of beautiful White Nutmeg or Torres Strait Pigeons. These pigeons were just beginning to arrive from northern latitudes. They roost at the islands at night, returning to the mainland to feed at sunrise. We saw dozens of last season's nests. Although we heard their loud 'coo' in different places, the pigeons were difficult to sight through the thick foliage of the trees in which they sought refuge. After being much embarrassed by the wet-scrub and canes, I got a splendid male Rifle Bird and a brace of hens (their plumage being at perfection at this period of the year). I then dropped into a sylvan nook to watch the actions of the birds around me. Here tall and thick foliage almost shut out the light of day. Pretty little Rufous Fantails darted at me as if I intruded upon their particular dominions; Zosterops chirped overhead; Megapodes or Scrub Hens chased each other through the underwood, and, not detecting my presence, passed within a few feet, uttering curious crying calls. Where the ground was loamy they were patching up their huge egg-mounds for the coming season - interesting in their way, but the subject preoccupying my mind was Rifle Birds. At one time I was surrounded by no less than two male Rifle Birds and five hens; some were on the ground turning over small stones and leaves in search of food, others were preening their beautiful quills or stretching their necks from behind a limb to watch me. Both male and female occasionally uttered the peculiar hoarse, guttural 'scrape' noise, which was sometimes repeated twice in succession. I could not sufficiently admire the splendid shining appearance of the male bird in every position, but when it darted through the rich green foliage or posed upon a rock it was really a superb creature. I felt convinced that the majority of the birds had not commenced to breed, so at intervals I fired small charges of dust-shot, and secured a pair of fine males and one hen. We all turned up at the tent hungry and wet, and over a warm 'billy' of tea exchanged experiences. The takings were distributed as follows: - The botanists, a pair of Rifle Birds and a pair of Pigeons; the younger brother, a pair of Rifles, a Megapode, and such small fry; and myself, three pairs of Rifles. Although a sharp look-out was kept none of us saw any traces of nests.
\n'Rats were again troublesome at night. They ran off with our preserved milk tin, and also destroyed one of our fine Pigeons. In the morning we expected the steamer, therefore we chiefly occupied ourselves in striking camp, &c., and gathering collections of sea-shells. These were volutes, cowries, cones, in end-less profusion, the majority being empty. The beach was entirely composed of fragments of dead coral, hard as cement, washed up by the sea. When the tide was out the rocks, which are of singular form-ation, like those of the island, bespangled with mica crystals, retained innumerable curious marine creatures, such as small fish, water snakes, a most remarkable roundish animal furnished with long brittle spines, live coral of bluish tint, &c. Abundance of oysters adhered to the rocks. After a while the 'Burdekin' hove in sight. Since our landing the surf had increased considerable, and the crew had to manouvre to keep the boat from being swamped by the breakers while taking us off. Without mishap, Cardwell was reached at six p.m. Thus ended our second excursion to the Barnards (or Ban-ards, as many persons insist upon calling them, by placing the accent on the second syllable), making a most agreeable climax to our 'Naturalists' Camp in Northern Queensland.'
\nIn 1887 I received from Mr. Charles French, F.L.S., the supposed nest and eggs of the Victoria Rifle Bird, which I described in the 'Naturalist' of that year. The specimens were found in the Cardwell Scrubs by an intelligent reliable collection of Mr. French; but upon Messrs. Le Souëf and Barnard's subsequent discovery, it appeared the collector, Mr. French, and myself had been misled - the old story of \"one fool makes many.'
\nThe honour of the first authenticated discovery of the nest and eggs of the Victoria Rifle Bird rests with my friends, Mr. Dudley Le Souëf and Mr. Harry Barnard, who visited the Barnard Islands and as if drawn by psychological influence, actually pitched their camp under a tree which was afterwards found to con-tain a nest and egg, and the hen of the rare bird sitting thereon.
\nThe following is Mr. Le Souëf's own description of the finding of the nest: - 'The nest was found 19th November, 1891. Mr. Harry Barnard and myself watched the hen bird for some time, and saw her fly into the crown of a pandanus tree growing close to the open beach. Although we could not distinguish the nest itself, we could see the head of the bird as she sat on it. The nest was about ten feet from the ground, and the bird sat quietly notwithstanding we were camped about five feet away from the tree.'
\nMeeting Mr. Le Souëf at Brisbane on his return home, I was one of the first to see his new and interesting discovery. He, with characteristic thoughtfulness, permitted me to describe the nest and egg. I took the earliest opportunity of doing so by describing them at the next (December) meeting of the Field Naturalists' Club, and thereby corrected my former error. The egg was afterwards figured by Mr. Le Souëf in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, and finally found a secure resting-place, as the type specimen, in the collection of the Australian Museum, Sydney.
\nIt would appear that Messrs. Le Souëf and Barnard visited the inner Barnard Islands, and not the outer, where my party and I found the Rifle Birds so numerous.
\nMr. Le Souëf made further inroads into the secluded domains of the Rifle Bird, but this time on the main-land in the Bloomfield River district, where he found the birds fairly plentiful in the scrubs, especially near the coast, their harsh note being often heard. They were by no means shy, and seemed to be very local, but great difficulty is attached to finding their nests. One was discovered 29th October in a fan palm, not far from the ground, by the blacks when clearing a place for their camp. It contained a pair of beautifully marked eggs. Before Mr. Le Souëf left, he found another nest building in a cordyline, only about seven or eight feet from the ground. The nest was carefully watched, and the eggs were taken on 20th November by Mr. R. Hislop for the finder. These eggs, a perfect pair, the third recorded find, and with a history so complete, now adorn my collection.
\nMr. Le Souëf saw a pair of Rifle Birds endeavouring to drive a Black (Quoy) Butcher Bird from the neighbourhood of their (the Rifles') nest, when they uttered a different note to their usual one. In building, according to Mr. Le Souëf, the Rifles seem to possess an extraordinary fascination for shed snake skins, as in two instances he saw pieces of snake skin worked into their nest, one piece being about three feet long, most of which was hanging loose. The hen bird, when sitting on her nest, is not easily disturbed.
\nMr. W. B. Barnard, who, with an English friend (Mr. Albert Meek), was collecting in the vicinity of the Bloomfield River at the time of Mr. Le Souëf's visit, has kindly supplied his field notes respecting the nidification of the Victoria Rifle Bird. He says: - 'Three nests with two eggs each were found. Two eggs were broken. The nest is often built in the fan palm, right at the trunk of the tree where the fronds join, fairly well hidden amongst the fibre. Mr. Le Souëf gives a good photograph of the nest. In one nest a snake's skin hung from inside down two feet. These birds build from the first week in September till the end of November.'
\nResources
Transcribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 69-75.
VICTORIA LYRE BIRD (Menura Victoriae, Gould)
\nGeographical Distribution - Victoria
\nNest - The inner or nest proper is constructed of the dark wire-like and fibrous material of fern-tree (Dicksonia) trunks and other fern rootlets, closely matted and interwoven with stringy leaves, moss, earth, &c; the inside bottom being lined with the bird's own feathers. It is about twice the size and the same shape as a modern football, with an end lopped off, which serves for a rounded side entrance. This inner nest is embedded in or protected by an exterior construction composed of large sticks and twigs, which are extended at the bottom into a platform or landing-place at the entrance. Frequently over the whole structure are artfully placed a few fronds (dead or green) or other vegetation. The situations and localities, which are various, are given a length in the 'Observations'. Dimensions over all: height, breadth and length, 24 to 30 inches every way; nest proper, 15 inches long by 12 inches in depth; inside, from wall to wall or from floor to roof, 10 to 12 inches; from entrance to back wall 13 to 14 inches; entrance 6 inches across, the ragged platform or landing-place extending 5 or 6 inches beyond the entrance.
\nEggs - Clutch, one only; inclined to over or an ellipse in shape; texture somewhat coarse; surface minutely pitted but glossy; colour varies from light to very dark purplish-grey, largely blotched, more or less, with dark-brown or sepia and dull purplish-slate. Sometimes the markings are of a more spotted character, and are thickest on and around the apex. When full an egg weighs 2 ¼ ounces. Dimensions in inches of selected examples: (1) 2.6 x 1.74, (2) 2.6 x 1.73, (3) 2.42 x 1.72. (Plate 16).
\nObservations - The chief difference between the Lyre Bird of New South Wales and the Victorian Lyre Bird is that in the latter species the rufous bars in the two outer tail feathers are more defined and broader, especially at the base, and the colour is much stronger and deeper. The darker tint is also observable in the tails of the females. Certainly these seem slender grounds (as Gould himself admitted) for separating the two species. But since the great naturalist's day, no ornithologist has been bold enough to say they are not distinct. However, it would be highly interesting to learn where the two species insulate or what tract of country divides the one kind of bird from the other.
\nThe geographical limits of the Victorian Lyre Bird extend throughout the Australian Alps and adjacent spurs, as far westward as the Plenty Ranges and southward through favourable tracts of country to the coast.
\nGould names the Victorian Lyre Bird after our Gracious Sovereign Lady, in 1862, from specimens received from the late Sir Frederick McCoy.
\nAt the same time Gould quoted the description of the nest as well as the following interesting notes sent to him by Dr. Ludwig Becker: 'A nest and egg found on the 31st August arrived in Melbourne on the 4th September in a good state of preservation. This was somewhat astonishing, considering that the blackfellow carried them on his back day by day, wrapped up in his opossum skin (rug), while by night he had to protect them from wild cats and other animals. In Melbourne, unfortunately, or rather fortunately, the egg was broken, and an almost fully-developed young one dropped out, which would in the course of two or three days have broken through the shell.
\n'The young one is almost unfledged, having only here and there feathers resembling black horse-hair, of an inch in length. The middle of the head and spine are the parts most thickly covered, while the fore arm and the legs are less so. A tuft is visible on its throat and two rows of small and light-coloured feathers on its belly. The skin is yellowish-grey colour; feet dark; claws grey; beak black; eyelids closed.
\n'I believe that the period of incubation of the Lyre Bird begins in the first week of August, and that the young one breaks through the shell in the beginning of September.'
\nDr. Becker, writing in September, 1859, stated that in October of the preceding year a nest of the Lyre Bird was found in the densely wooded ranges near the source of the River Yarra. The nest contained a young bird in a sickly state, and large in size compared with its helplessness. When taken out of the nest it screamed loudly 'tching-tching,' the notes attracting the mother bird, which came within a few paces of her young and was shot for a specimen.
\nProbably the oldest data recorded with regard to the Victoria Lyre Bird are those given in Samuel Sidney's 'The Colonies of Australia,' published in 1853, wherein is stated that: - 'In 1844,* Mr. Hawdon, with a party of twelve able-bodied men, including black native police, was instructed by the Government to open up a practical route for cattle from Western Port to Gippsland. It was while performing this journey that he had an opportunity of closely examining the shy and curious Lyre Bird.'
\nThe oldest information I possess dates back to 1847, when a relative of mine commissioned a black-fellow named McNabb (a somewhat characteristic Caledonian name for an aborigine of the long defunct Yarra Yarra tribe) to obtain some tail feathers. He was absent a few days and returned with five tails, which he procured on the Yarra side of the Dandenong Ranges, and for which he received the reward of one shilling each.
\nConsidering that the position of the Menura on the great list of birds is unique, and that the eyes of almost every ornithologist are directed towards this wonderful bird, not much has been written and surely much has yet to be ascertained regarding the economy of a bird that will soon become scarce on account of its particular haunts being invaded and destroyed by the march of civilisation, the enactment of laws by Governments without regard to the proper protection of peculiar native fauna (the Game Act notwithstanding, which in letter now protects the Lyre Bird all the year) and the introduction of such vermin as foxes.
\nI have endeavoured to add my quota to the literary knowledge of the Lyre Bird by the publication of such articles as 'In the Wilds of Gippsland - Lyre Bird Shooting' (1877, 'Notes about Lyre Birds' (read before the Field Naturalists' Club of Victoria, 1884, and afterwards reprinted in the Scientific American), and 'Lyre Bird Nesting' (1884). Here it may be deemed proper to cull and re-write the more important and interesting parts of these articles, adding there to subsequent personal observations as well as information furnished by friends and collectors favourably situated, amongst whom I may mention Messrs. D. Le Souëf, J. Gabriel, R. C. Chandler, Robert Hughes, A. W. Milligan and I. W. De Lany.
\nMy first experiences among Lyre Birds were somewhat rough if not romantic. Towards the ends of the summers of 1875 and 1877, I visited some virgin forest country that was being thrown open for selection at Neerim, about twenty miles northward of what is now the flourishing district of Warragul, or the Brandy Creek of the old coaching days. Of course, much of the timber around Neerim must be demolished now, but as I saw it one wonders how the rich chocolate-coloured soil, however generous and watered as it is with numerous delightfully cool and clear running streams, could sustain such a wealth of giant vegetation. The reader may gather some idea of its semi-tropical growth, so to speak, if he can imagine three great forests rolled into one thus: - Firstly, thickly studded elegant fern-trees entwined with various parasitical creepers, forming fairy-like bowers carpeted with a ground scrub of innumerable ferns; secondly, trees of medium height, such as sassafras, musk, pittosporum, native hazel, blackwood and other acacias, &c.; and thirdly, towering above all a great forest of gigantic eucalypts. Within, and under the triple shades of these leafy solitudes, is the true home of the wonderful Menura, commonly but erroneously called a Pheasant by the selectors.
\nOn the occasion of the first trip the score of miles between the main Gippsland road and Neerim occupied nine hours of travelling, and was only marked by an uncertain 'blazed' track, therefore I took the opportunity of travelling up on foot with a party of selector friends, but I had to return alone. On the second trip I was again alone, and portions of the forest were on fire, the track at intervals leading by roaring and burning patches, sometimes through a blackened waste of prostrate timber still smouldering. Where trees had recently fallen, if I passed on the windward side I uncomfortably felt their feverish dying breath, and far too frequently others crashed down in the neighbourhood, bringing to my mind vivid recollections of unfortunate bushmen who had yielded up the ghost pinned to the chocolate-coloured soil by detached boughs.
\nHowever, during the two trips, and notwithstanding the extremely shy disposition of these birds, I was enabled to shoot ten males, all with fresh new tails, besides as many females as I required for my collection. Although Lyre Birds were numerous, great difficulty and much patience had to be exercised in procuring them, so terribly shy are they. You patrol leisurely up a gully or along the survey lines till you hear a bird merrily whistling on his hillock, or dancing ground, a little distance in, then you commence carefully - oh, so carefully, for one false step, an extra shuffle of the leaves, or the snapping of a twig under foot, and your prey simply disappears as if by magic - to crawl on your hands and knees, as often as not wriggling snake fashion on your stomach through ferns and scrub from stump to stump and from tree to tree. Listen! The bird stops singing as if instinctively knowing danger is approaching, whereupon you have to become like a statue, fixed to some fern root, and dare not move a muscle, no, not even if you feel a land-leech attacking your legs, or a large mosquito stinging the tip of your nose. Presently the bird commences whistling as joyously as ever. On you creep, every yard nearer, so that with the excitement your heart increases in palpitation till it throbs so loudly that you fancy the bird will hear it. All the time the close humid scrub bathes you in perspiration, while great beads stand upon your forehead, then rolling off, patter on the dried leaves beneath you. Affairs are desperate now, for at last you are within shooting distance and are peering through the ferns with uplifted gun, and finger trembling upon the trigger; but, alas, the bird possessing sharper eyes than you discovers you first, and is that very second off noiselessly and unperceived. There is no alternative left but to retrace your steps to the track, and your chagrin can be better imagined than expressed. This operation you may repeat on an average five times before you get even the slightest possible chance of shooting a bird. But I found the females easy to bag, for they frequently leapt into the trees overhead to survey me.
\nMr. Kendall, when generously aiding me in reading the proofs of this work, brought under my notice a little publication, Travels with Dr. Leichhardt, by Daniel Bunce, wherein Mr. Bunce mentions that towards the end of 1839 he (Bunce), accompanied by some aborigines, made an excursion (probably the first naturalists' one) to the Dandenongs, chiefly for plants, but several 'Bullen Bullen', or Victoria Lyre Birds, were obtained. Mr. Bunce was botanist and naturalist to Dr. Leichhardt during the first portion (from Sydney to Fitzroy Downs) of the Doctor's last unfortunate expedition, and afterwards curator of the Geelong Botanic Gardens. - A.J.C.
\nMr. G. H. Haydon saw the Victoria Lyre Birds (3rd May, 1844) during his journey through Gippsland, and described them in his 'Australia Felix', 1846, pp. 131-133. - E.A.P.
\nIn addition to procuring specimens I was enabled to get glimpses of the remarkable Lyre Bird at home. Each male bird appeared to possess a little hillock or mound of earth, which it scrapes up with its immense claws, and upon which it promenades while displaying its beautiful tail by reflecting and shaking the appendage over its back within a few inches of the head, all the while making the gullies or forest ring with the most melodious whistle-like notes, interspersed with curious noises, or with mimic songs and calls of other forest birds both large and small.
\nThe toil attending to search for Lyre Birds' nests, of all nesting outs, is the most arduous, and must be experienced to be fully realized, because, firstly, these curious birds, contrary to the general rule, nest in winter, the wettest months of our year, consequently terribly boggy and greasy tracks have to be travelled; secondly, the physical features of the country to be scoured are of the roughest and wildest description, such as Gippsland alone can produce. You have to thread your way through closely-growing hazel scrub, knee-deep in wet ground ferns, then tear through rank, rasping sword-grass, cutting your very clothes, not unfrequently nastily gashing your unprotected hands and face; next, you may be entangled in a labyrinth of wire grass, holding you at every step and hiding treacherous logs over which you equilibrium is frequently destroyed, and landing upon you side, you grunt and struggle amongst rank vegetation. To clime the opposite hill you cross on 'all fours' a wet saturated log which naturally bridges the gully. In accomplishing this awkward task, overhanging fern-trees laden with moisture dash in your face, drenching you nearly as much as if some one had thrown a pail of water over you. Notwithstanding the chilly weather, there is always an amount of warmth present in these dense forests, which, together with your wholesome exercise, you are soon perspiring, and gladly you half now and again for breathing time at the head of some lovely fern gully overshadowed by giant timber where you stand in one of the silent picturesque temples of nature.
\nAnd in Thy temple will I, bending,
\nThe wondrous works of God adore;
\nThis is the pow'r, O Lord, extending
\nO'er all the world for evermore.
I said I had shot ten male Lyre Birds. By a strange coincidence, between the years 1884 and 1894, I either found or was present at the taking of ten nests, or an average of one egg a season, an ample and sufficient reward to satisfy any working oologist.
\nThe dates of the finding were as follow: - August 3rd, 1884, three - two fresh, one half-incubated; July 24th, 1886, one, perfectly fresh; August 12th, 1891, one, addled; October 1st , 1891, one (second egg), fresh; August 11th, 1894, two - one not fresh, one about half-incubated.
\nI shall give a detailed account of the first outing (August, 1884), which may perhaps prove interesting, and also illustrate the class of country and particular spots where the Victoria Lyre Bird nidifies.\nHaving arrived at a station on the Gippsland line, I entered a coach for the mountains just as a late winter's sun was disappearing below the horizon. The team of two horses was anything but reassuring, judging from their points, which reminded one of the witty American's horse that possessed such good points that one could hand one's hat on them. However, by dint of much lashing, and the passengers occasionally dismounting, the animals were kept on their \"pins\" till the first change. We were then trans-shipped into a lighter conveyance drawn by one horse. By the light from the zenith of a three-quarter moon we bowled merrily through the forest, and the mountains were reached in due course.
\nAt the coach terminus I was met by a friend, who accompanied me on foot some two miles into the range. This was the last but by no means the least enjoyable portion of my evening's journey, along a lovely moonlit mountain track, chequered by shadows of towering gum-trees, while the dense scrub on either hand sent forth aromatic fragrance which was alike refreshing and invigorating. My friend's good wife had supper waiting for us, after which we discussed the probabilities of obtaining Lyre Birds' nests on the morrow.
\nAt length a beautiful balmy morn (for it had been a mild winter) broke, and was ushered in by the voices of many birds, the cheering pipe of the Magpie, the laughing of the Jackass, clinking notes of the Crow Shrike, with a perfect chorus from numbers of the smaller fry - Thrushes, Thickheads, Acanthizas, Wrens, &c.
\nAfter breakfast my companion and I started, suitably attired with leggings and so forth, for our mountain scramble. Up the track we scattered a few beautiful Mountain Thrushes. We ascended what I shall term the first gully, a slight indentation on the face of a steep mountain. The course was indicated by ground ferns, tree ferns, and open hazel scrub moderately studded with larger trees. When almost at this gully's source, my companion's joyous call betokened a find of more than ordinary interest. I was a little higher up the ridge. A few long downward strides soon brought me to his side, and we stood gazing upon a much coveted prize, a Menura, or Lyre Bird's nest. The nest was near a crystalline spring, and was cunningly concealed in the ferns. The back part was placed up gully, while the entrance commanded a downhill view. I roughly sketched the situation, and took dimensions both in and out of the nest, and carefully side-blew the egg, which was much darker than usual. Then, with the assistance of my companion, we removed the nest bodily from its romantic resting-place and sewed it up in a large piece of canvas. The package was no small encumbrance, being six or seven feet in circumference. My companion, who possessed broader shoulders than I, suggested he should take it down the gully and deposit it near the track, to be recovered on our return homeward.
\nFlushed with such early success, we hastened out steps across the face of the mountain and entered a second gully richly grown with ground ferns and with more dog or blanket wood than the previous one. I still elected to beat uphill, while my companion kept below. Good fortune favoured me this time. I dis-covered the second nest in a very similar position to the former one, but slightly smaller and more com-pact, and the egg was more beautiful and lighter in colour.
\nThe third gully brought us to very slippery ground, and at times we had much difficulty in retaining our footing. We beat this gully to its source, and emerged on the summit of the range. Travelling along its crest for some distance we made a dip to the right into a hollow. This, the fourth gully, was not so steep, and was a somewhat boggy watercourse. It contained some beautiful ferns, notably a pretty coral-like variety (Gleichenia), which in places entwined itself up the scrub to a height of ten or twelve feet. There were also a few sassafras trees. One of the saplings I felled, to serve as an alpenstock, and a very great assistance it was in such rough country, while its wounded bark emitted a highly scented and pleasant perfume.
\nIn the fifth gully we came across deserted prospectors' diggings. Nearly all the watercourses show specks of gold, and experts state that payable reefs may yet be discovered in the district. However, all that we found of interest in our line were two old Lyre Birds' nests. They were conjoined and placed between two fern trees. The top one was probably last year's nest, the underneath one the preceding season's.
\nThe sixth and seventh gullies were much alike in character, indeed all the courses are thickly timbered, with as much lying on the ground as is standing. It requires great perseverance and energy to travel through such country; the greatest difficulty is clambering over huge dead trees and other decayed fallen timber, which at all times are damp and slippery, but especially at this period of the year. You never know where your next footstep will land you. For instance, when you step upon a greasy tree-barrel it is extremely doubtful whether your foot will slip up, or down, or over the side. Should you sur-mount the obstacle successfully the chances are you my bottom a crab or earth-worm hole up to your knees in mud. The country is favourable for the great earth-worms that we hear so much about, but read very little of. Their size varies from three to seven feet. They produce subterraneously a peculiar sucking noise when receding rapidly into their holes. In such country you can only afford one eye to look for nests, while the other is reserved to navigate the scrub and observe locality, because, be it remembered, there is nothing easier than to get bushed in such heavily-timbered ranges.
\nBy this time it was late in the afternoon, and we directed our thoughts homeward. We decided to make the eighth gully the last, to beat it to its source, thence again gain the top of the range. This gully became more enchanting as we neared its spring. The banks gradually steepened on either side where, thickly studded, were noble tree-ferns, whose dark-brown trunks were overgrown with mosses, lichens and parasitical ferns innumerable, and their long graceful fronds which met overhead, quite darkened and softened the picture. With such charming glimpses of primeval nature, the sense of smell was equally satiated by the powerful and delightful aroma that floated in the air from the blossoming sassafras above.
\nAlong this secluded sylvan arcade I proceeded slowly and carefully, feeling assured that some Lyre Bird would choose such a romantic situation for its nest. I could hear my companion crashing through the timber u-hill. As I crawled from underneath a large fallen log, I instinctively cast an eye on the right bank and my delight can be imagined when I espied the third nest backed up against a sassafras tree, with the entrance full in my face. I sent out a 'coo-ee-ee' to my companion that made the hills ring again, at the same time the unwonted noise frighted the poor bird off the nest. She gave one bound over a log and in an instant was out of sight.
\nAfter coming out of the ferns on the saddle of the range the walking was extremely rough, through thick brackens, and other obstructive scrub, not to mention sword and wire grasses; besides, the I left the birds and their nests behind, a reaction immediately set in, fatigue and hunger making themselves pain-fully obvious. I had not broken my fast for eight hours; as for my companion, he seemed to thrive amazingly on the rarefied mountain air and tobacco smoke. He appeared used to this sort of business. I reckoned with him that I could not proceed without something to eat. My spirits revived when he in-formed me there was a hut close by where we would be welcome for a meal. The sequel proved it, because the good wife, almost before she had welcomed us, placed the kettle on a roaring fire.
\nWhile we refreshed ourselves darkness supervened, and we were still two miles or more from home, with a rugged gully to be traversed. We stepped out merrily along the track on the saddle of the range and entered the gully, which was awfully dark; what little light the clouded moon gave was now completely shut out by the thick foliage. Creeping, crawling and climbing over the rocks, stumps, &c., became the order of the evening, and was a very awkward undertaking, not to say dangerous. Several times I slipped and banged up against a tree stem, which brought me up all standing. On one very greasy patch I came a regular 'cropper' on my back, and had literally to shake myself together before I could rise, and was just in time to notice, through the gloom, my partner perform a somersault into a wombat's hole. But one peep at Nature compensated for it all. Ours was the rare privilege to witness a living scene denied to thousands of our fellow-beings. An opening in the trees presented a most lovely vista. From our position we looked down the gully upon the crowns of a mass of tree-ferns. The clouds had now withdrawn from the face of the moon and, like a grand transformation scene, the flood of light streamed in, giving all the graceful frondage and other foliage a most beautiful, subdued, silvered appearance.
\nAfter recovering, with a little difficulty, the nest we had deposited in the morning near the track, and navigating the cumbersome structure through the scrub, we arrived at my friend's house in good time for a good supper, none the worse for our day's Lyre Bird nesting, the success of which exceeded our most sanguine expectations.
\nThe Victorian Lyre Bird mates in May or June. At that time the males sing more lustily than at any other period and, like human beings, don their best frills for courting, their ombre plumage appearing very sleek, while their graceful tail feathers are at their prime.
\nThey commence to build at once. During the peregrinations of the forester, Mr. Robert Hughes, through the Dandenongs, he took particular notice of the foundations of the nest he saw on the 1st June and, passing the spot on the 10th July, he observed that it was completed and apparently ready for the egg. A still earlier commencement of nest construction was noted in the same ranges by Messrs. R. C. Chandler and H. Kendall, and reported in the 'Victorian Naturalist,' May, 1892. They stated that on the 23rd March they found a newly started Lyre Bird's nest, the walls of which were raised by the bird at least two inches between the time of their passing in the forenoon and return some three hours later.
\nThe earliest authenticated record I possess of an egg noticed in a nest was on the 3rd or 4th of July. The nest and contents were subsequently washed down the gully by a great flood. Taking the three first nests I found as a guide, and judging by the state of the incubation, I should say they were laid about the beginning, middle, or end of July respectively. Therefore we may infer that the nest generally is completed a week or two prior to receiving the egg, or about the beginning of July; that, as a rule, the egg is deposited during that month and that the young is hatched about the beginning of September. The young accompanies its parent till the following laying season, and is often fed by her long after the youngster is able to help itself. When grown, the young may be distinguished by its noise - resembling that of a domestic fowl's chick - and by the chestnut colouring about the face and on the throat.
\nAt my request, Mr. I. W. De Lany endeavoured to prove the length of incubation. He had one nest under observation, but unfortunately had to shift quarters before the period was completed. The egg was deposited in the nest on the 24th August, and when it was taken on the 15th September, or twenty-two days afterwards, incubation had not advanced much. However, the following note from Mr. De Lany shows he eventually succeeded. Writing from the Omeo district, 1898, he says: -
\nThey (Lyre Birds) have been exceptionally late in laying this season, and the male birds have hardly whistled at all. I found a nest partly built and watched it till the egg was laid on the 1st September. The young bird did not appear till the 21st October, which is fifty days. I was beginning to think that the egg was infertile, and that the old bird kept sitting on. Another nest that I found with the egg deposited a week later is not out yet (the time of writing), so the extraordinary length of time appears to be no exception.'
\nI can find no evidence of Lyre Birds re-constructing their old nests, as mentioned by one writer, although the birds may build near, or even upon an old home, but, in rare instances, when the egg has been robbed, another egg has been found in the same nest.
\nI believe both birds aid in the construction of the nest, but the female alone incubates, the male keeping entirely away from his brooding mate.
\nNests are usually placed near the ground in thick scrub, in valleys or gullies, or on ridges, as well as more level country, but generally in the neighbourhood of ferns and fern-trees, usually with a good out-look in front, or down hill.
\nI have already given the situations of the first three out of ten nests which I found. The following, briefly stated, were the situations of the remaining seven: -
\n1. In a hazel gully, on right bank, picturesquely situated on a small rock, with a fair mountain streamlet passing the base of the rock. Behind the nest were ground-ferns and other vegetation, the entrance facing west (i.e. the stream).
\n2. In a gully, on right bank, at the base of a fern-tree and sassafras sapling, by a stream, and backed up with a thick undergrowth of wire grass, &c.; entrance south-east; bird flushed.
\n3. On the tope of a range near the base of a giant eucalypt by a boggy stream. Entrance north, on right bank.
\n4. On a hill side a foot or two from the ground, at the base of a tree-fern, and backed up with ground-ferns. Entrance faced north-east, down hill; bird flushed.
\n5. In a somewhat open gully on the ground, well hidden with ferns, with stream at foot. On left bank, entrance south-west; bird flushed.
\n6. In a gully well among the hills, resting on a fallen or reclining fern-tree and between four hazels at a height of six or seven feel from the ground. About seventy yards from a stream. Entrance facing south, downhill.
\n7. On left bank of a very dark and narrow gully, backed up with ground ferns, and overshadowed by fern-trees; stream at foot; entrance east; bird flushed. In all these instances the egg lay buried amongst the feathers in the bottom of the nest. Only in one instance was the egg visible when I stood in front of the nest.
However, the nest is frequently built in such other places as the hollow of an old tree butt, in sassafras or musk trees, and still higher in forks of blackwood or even eucalypts. The highest Lyre Birds' nests to my knowledge were noticed by Mr. Le Souef on the family property, 'Gembrook.' One was constructed in the fork of a white gum (Eucalypt) about seventy feet from the ground. Another was built fully eighty feet above the ground, on the jagged end of the barrel of a stringybark eucalypt, about one hundred yards from the house, the top of the tree having been blown off by tempest. In both these cases the trees grew in gullies.
\nWhen the female is sitting in the nest only her head and tail tips are visible at the entrance. The tail usually appears over her back or turned on one side.
\nBefore leaving the situations of the nest I might mention one that was found by a botanical collector. It was wedged between four tree-fern stems (Asophila) growing from the one base. The fern was after-wards grubbed and forwarded to a botanical institution in Italy. Another nest observed by a friend of mine 24th August, 1889, was built upon a high stump on Mount Feathertop, with snow upon the ground.\nProbably the 'record' for Lyre Bird nesting was performed by my enthusiastic friend, Mr. Joseph Gabriel and companions during four consecutive days (the three last of July and the first of August) in the season of 1893. It will be remembered it was just at the time when the Government of the day commenced to despoil the magnificent forest tracts of the Dandenongs by throwing them open as a village settlement. No small blame to Mr. Gabriel that he \"cut in\" for a few eggs before the birds fell to the settlers' pots.
\nThe following is the 'record' kindly furnished to me by Mr. Gabriel: - 'First egg found in nest at foot of gum tree about thirty feel up-hill from creek. Measurement of nest 28 inches high, 24 inches broad, and 16 inches from back to front.
\n'Second egg (last year's) in nest foot of gum tree twenty feet from creek. A stick had fallen across the nest and flattened it. Evidently the bird could not get to her egg.
\n'Third egg in nest found on side of creek on a jutting mossy bank, very prettily situated.
\n'Fourth egg in nest at head of tributary, nicely placed on a bank. Two of us were talking here for ten minutes, disturbing the bird, which flew out, at the same time revealing her nest which we would other-wise have missed. You may guess I flew too down the bank!
\n'Fifth egg in nest in fork of musk tree growing in the creek; it was about ten feet from the ground.
\n'Sixth egg (last year's) in nest on fork of leaning fern-tree in bed of creek.
\n'Seventh egg is nest in bunch of grass well up the hill near Invermay house.
\n'Eighth egg in nest built at foot of gum tree only fourteen feet from selector's hut, or rather, I should say, the bark had been stripped off the tree to build the hut. Nest was found three weeks before the egg was laid.
\n'Ninth egg in nest on ground at butt of gum tree in creek.
\n'Tenth egg in nest placed on stump about twelve feet from ground well up-hill.
\n'Eleventh egg in nest in Perrin's Creek, at foot of fern-tree.
\n'Twelfth egg in nest in tributary or Perrin's Creek, on leaning fern-tree.
\n'Thirteenth egg in nest well up on side eof hill.
\n'Fourteenth egg in nest on leaning fern-tree, well up the head of Sassafras Gully.'
Mr. Gabriel added that the average measurements of the eggs were 2.52 x 1.66 inches. All the eggs, with the exception of the two addled ones, were either quite fresh or just turning. They were all dark-coloured specimens excepting two, which were a trifle lighter.
\nExceptions prove the rule. The Lyre Bird invariably lays a single egg a season, but rare instances of doublets are known. In the course of Mr. Chandler's long experience in the wilds of Gippsland, he has found nests containing a pair of eggs, notably on the 24th July one season, when he found two nests with each a pair of precious eggs - one lot was fresh, the other slightly incubated. Mr. Chandler kindly presented me with a pair, which at a glance one could see were as like as two peas, as the saying goes, but they were slightly smaller in their dimensions then the usual average size.
\nMr. Le Souëf has also found a nest containing a doublet. It was the 25th August, 1893. Both eggs were fresh, but one was slightly lighter and larger than the other. On the following day he discovered on the steep bank of a creek another nest containing one fresh egg. Passing the same nest three weeks later, he was much surprised to see a bird fly out, and on climbing to the nest he found a second egg had been laid. The egg was slightly addled and had, Mr. Le Souëf judged, been laid about a week, or shortly after his first visit. In both these interesting instances, and upon circumstantial evidence, it may be inferred that the respective birds laid two eggs, but there remains the possibility that each egg was deposited by a separate bird, especially in the first case, where the eggs I examined were different.
\nI have yet to record another instance of the finding in a nest a second egg after the first had been taken. It occurred on the first October, 1892, when Messrs. Le Souëf, Chandler and myself went specially to photograph an exceedingly picturesque nest. On reaching the spot, and to our astonishment, out flushed a bird which had commenced to sit on a fresh egg. From this same nest, on the 31st July, or two months previously, Mr. Chandler took the first egg.
\nAlthough not exactly pertaining to its nidification, I may conclude my observations with other remarks as to the history of now most remarkable bird.
\nA writer has stated that on going to roost at night the Lyre Birds \"choose a secluded spot sheltered from the wind, and mostly in a low tree.\" My observations are the reverse of this. About dusk I have watched them, till I almost lost their form, fly sometimes more than one hundred feet up to the thick branches of some great forest patriarch. They ascend by a succession of leaps and short flights from bough to bough and from tree to tree, always surveying the position after each move. I also know for a fact that birds have been observed coming out of gullies to roost on large dead trees on the ridges, where they have been shot. In roosting they do not congregate. Sometimes during moonlight seasons a cock bird from his elevated perch agreeably disturbs the midnight stillness of the forest by his delightful whistle. Speaking about night, it is said that the Powerful Owl (Ninox strenua) occasionally takes Lyre Birds off their roost.
\nThe powerful sonorous ring of the Lyre Bird's natural song is not surpassed by any of its Australian compeers, and, as to its mocking capabilities, it certainly would appear to leave the world's wonderful mocking birds behind. The Lyre Bird's ear is indeed so accurate that it can imitate to the very semitone the vocalism of any of its forest friends, whether the \"mo-poke\" nocturne of the Boo-book Owl, the coarse laughter-like notes of the Jackass or Great Kingfisher, the crack-like note of the Coach Whip Bird or the higher-pitched and more subdued notes of smaller fry. But perhaps the most extraordinary vocal performance is the imitating, not a single bird, but a flock. I have heard it imitate simultaneous sounds resembling exactly the voices of a flock of Pennant Parrakeets rising from the scrub. This clever feathered mimic is equally at home with other familiar forest sounds - the grunting of the so-called native bear (Koala), the barking of the selector's dog, the noise of the splitter's saw, or the clinking of his axe against the metal wedge - all alike are perfectly reproduced in the throat of this wonderful bird. There is a story told of a tramp who heard sawing sounds in a gully hard by. He went down to ask the supposed sawyers for matches, but found he had been duped by a Lyre Bird.
\nMr. A. W. Milligan, who has recorded some facts on the imitative faculties of this 'master of ornithological song and mimicry', says the only sound the Lyre Bird cannot successfully imitate is the sound of a bell attached to a horse's neck; the jingle-jangle of the bell as the horse moves its head in the act of feeding seeming to baffle it. It may yet be proved that this bird is also an able ventriloquist.
\nThe birds seldom or never sing in windy weather, but in South Gippsland, where the mountain spurs terminate abruptly at the sea, and where birds may be found breeding within one hundred yards of the shore, it is delightful to catch their pure liquid calls above thee boom of the ocean billows, or to hear their musical cadenzas mingle with 'the sorrowful song of the sea'.
\nIt should be mentioned that only the cock bird whistles and mocks in this magnificent style; the hen makes but feeble attempts. I have heard her endeavour to imitate in a quiet way the notes of the Strepera and Jackass, and utter a squealing noise, especially about roosting time. Mr. Hughes has heard them making such sounds about the time the young begin to fly, as if the mother bird were teaching the youngster to use its voice.
\nThe alarm note of both the male and the female is a short, sharp, shrill whistle, not unlike that produced by a person placing the tongue against the upper front teeth after the fashion of the street arabs. The call is a lower-pitched double note sounding like 'bleck-bleck' or 'bullan-bullan'. Both sounds, by the way, are aboriginal names for the Lyre Bird.
\nMr. I. W. De Lany, who has had considerable experience among Lyre Birds in Victorian forests, has not such a good opinion of the mocking capabilities of the bird as most observer. He writes: - 'My experience as to mocking is that they do not, but every bird whistles exactly alike, and a bird during the first year, without a tail, is as perfect in his notes as the oldest. They only have the notes of a few of the birds they are amongst. If they mimicked I should think they ought to include every bird they hear. For instance, they have the voice of the Black Cockatoo, but not of the white one, nor of the Magpie, and many others I could mention that are reared in the same country with them. As to imitating chopping, sawing, cooeing, &c., it is the same as the wonderful things the old bushmen tell us about - snakes chasing them, and Jackasses all congregating in a tree to laugh at them when their dray gets stuck in the mud'.
\nAs I have already mentioned, it is commonly known that the male bird possesses a little mound of earth, or hillock, or possibly more, which the bird scrapes up usually in the thickest of ground scrub. Upon this mound (which is about three feet in diameter) it capers and dances, also proudly drooping its wings and displaying its elegant tail, all the while pouring forth its varied songs. Between periods there comes from the throat a spasmodic buzzing or purring noise, while the tail with quivering quills is expanded or reflected over the back.
\nThe food of the Lyre Bird consists principally of beetles, centipedes, scorpions, worms, land-crabs, and snails, and occasionally something more substantial in the shape of bush mice.
\nMy friend Mr. R. C. Chandler tells some extraordinary bush yarns, yet I think he has not drawn the 'long-bow' in the following two instances. Twice he noticed an albino cock bird in the Bass River district. It sang most melodiously and was a lovely creature. Its pure white plumage contrasted wonderfully with the eyes, bill and legs, which were black, while the tail was large, well formed, and of the usual colour. On one occasion he witnessed two male birds fighting. Like roosters, they freely used their claws and bills, and in their excitement occasionally tripped over their tails.
\nIt was mentioned in the 'School Paper,' Class III., May, 1896, that Mr. S. McNeilly, of Drouin, had stated he kept a pet Lyre Bird for more than eleven years. For six years the tail was like that of the hen bird. In the seventh year he got his tail complete, which grew in length until it was about 2 feet 5 inches long. This tail was shed every year.
\nIn connection with this Lyre Bird I have given three illustrations: one, 'The Haunt', depicting a typical Australian fern-tree gully; and pictures of two nests, photographed of course in situ.
\nResources
\nTranscribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 510-523.
The Wedge-tailed Eagle
\nGeographical Distribution - Whole of Australia and Tasmania.
\nNest - Composed of dead sticks, and lined inside with such material as stringybark or grass and green branchlets. Usually the structure is exceedingly bulky, but woomewhat flat on the top; a fair-sized nest measuring about five or six feet across; inside, or egg cavity, about fourteen inches across by three or four inches deep. Situation, always a commanding one - a tall forest tree, or the forked limb of a tree at the bend of a river, or on a good mountain outlook. On the plains of the interior, where timber is absent, the nest is sometimes constructed of grass and placed on a bush.
\nEggs - Clutch, two usually, sometimes one, rarely three; round in shape or round ovals; texture of shell coarse, surface dull and lustreless; colour, warmish-white, blotched and spotted with rusty-red or chestnut, intermingled with m dull cloudy purplish markings, which underlie the surface of the shell. In another paid the dull purplish markings predominate, one example having the whole of the smaller end covered with a large patch of dull or light purple. In a third clutch the dull markings predominate in one egg, while the other is so richly marbled or mottled with the rusty-red (in large patches in places) and purplish markings as to obliterate nearly the entire white surface. In some instances specimens have been known to be devoid of any markings, or one white egg in a pair.
\nObservations - The readers of AnthonyTrollope may regard the statement as Australian \"blow\" when I say that our Eagle, or as Australians call it, the Eagle Hawk, is larger than the famous Golden Eagle of Europe and elsewhere. Nevertheless, that is the fact, and any person who doubts may see both birds side by side in that well-ordered and instructive institution, the Zoological Garden, at Royal Park, Melbourne. It is somewhat remarkable that, in his Handbook, Gould has not recorded detailed dimensions for so large and important a bird as the Wedge-tailed Eagle. Diggles gives figures as follows: Total length, 38 inches; wing, 24 inches; tail, 17½ inches; bill, 2 ¾ inches; and tarsi or legs, 5 inches. The measurements of the Golden Eagle are:- Length, 32 inches; wing, 24 ½ inches; tail 13 inches. He does not give the expanse between tips of the wings, but I should say the measurement in an average specimen would be about six or seven feet. We are all familiar with the garb of the Wedge-tailed Eagle, which is dark-brown, almost black in some specimens. The difference between the brown and black plumage may be accounted for by age. The wedge-shaped tail, which first suggested the vernacular name of the bird, is generally black. The cere - i.e. the naked space between the feathers of the forehead and the bill proper - is yellowish, the bill yellowish-horn colour, passing into black at the tip, and feet also yellowish. Taken altogether, it is a noble and imposing bird, with searching hazel eyes set in a flat-crowned head.
\nThe Wedge-tailed Eagle enjoys a wide range throughout the length and breadth of Australia and Tasmania. It is, however, becoming rare in parts, and in the near future may be as scarce as the Golden Eagle in Europe, consequent upon the war waged against the bird by squatters and others for sundry pastoral depredations, which the splendid bird is tempted by nature to commit. If we only reflect for a moment, we shall learn that the good Eagles perform considerably overbalances the harm they do.
\nMost of my experiences amongst Eagles' nests have been with the Messrs. Brittlebank in that romantic locality known as the Werribee Gorge, and the adjacent ironbark forest ranges beyond Bacchus Marsh, Victoria. Since the gold era, these wide localities have remained practically undisturbed for years. In some of the more secluded gullies we have seen trees supporting two or three nests, while at one favourite bend no less than six bulky structures were in sight, showing how long the birds had retained the same spot. Of course, only one or two would be the new nests; the others were abandoned aeries. Sometimes we proved that a particular nest was added to and used again season after season, and contained a plentiful amount of fur, evidently from rabbits and other animals consumed by the birds and young. The favourite situation for a nest or aerie is about thirty feed from the ground in a tree on the face of a steep hill, with the gully two hundred feet below and a commanding outlook on either side. Eagles' nests in the locality mentioned have been taken as early as the end of August and as late as 26th October, the birds appearing to commence to mate in March and April. However, in other localities, notably in Queensland, eggs have been taken as early as the 10th June.
\nIn some instances the eggs were covered with branchlets or nest debris, showing the birds' caution in not leaving their eggs exposed, when the owners were absent. The nests Gould had opportunities of observing were placed on the most inaccessible trees. Although, during the months of August and Setpember, he repeatedly shot birds from their aeries in which there were eggs, he was unable to obtain them, not one but the aboriginals being capable of ascending such trees. But, during the year 1864, Gould received his first fine egg from Mr. George Angas, of South Australia.
\nDr. Ramsay, writing to the Ibis, 1863, says:- 'The first eggs I obtained were taken in August, 1860, and were given me by Mr. James Ramsay, at Cardington, a station on the Bell River, near Molong. They were taken from a nest by a black-boy who had 'stepped' the tree. The nest was placed upon a fork near the end of one of the main branches of a large eucalyptus. It was fully seventy feet from the ground, and no easy task to get to it. The structure was about three-and-a-half feet high by four or five feet broad, and about eighteen inches deep, lined with tufts of grass and with down plucked from the breasts of the birds, upon which the eggs were placed.'
\nResources
\nTranscribed Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900. Page 11.
MAGPIE LARK (Grallina picata, Latham - 102)
\nGeographical Distribution - Throughout Australia and Tasmania (accidental).
\nNest - Bowl-shaped, built usually black, but varies in shade according to locality where; gathered; lined inside sparingly with grass and a few feathers, and usually situated on a bare horizontal limb of a tree in the vicinity of water, overhanging a stream, or standing in a lagoon. Dimensions over all, 5 -1/2 by 4-1/2 to 5 inches in depth; egg cavity, 4-1/2 inches across by 2-1/2 inches deep. (See illustration.)
\nEggs - Clutch three to four, occasionally five; usual shape pyriform; texture of shell fine, and surface glossy; colour, pearly-white, spotted about the apex with dark purplish-red and light-purple, but generally the ground-colour is pinkish, ranging in tone from light pink or pinkish-white to rich buffy-red, with markings of pinkish-red and purple, confluent, and forming a belt around the upper quarter; in some examples the markings are more blotched, and distributed over the whole surface. Dimensions in inches of two proper clutches: (A) (1) 1.14 x .8, (2) 1.11 x .82, (3) 1.10 x .8, (4) 1.1 x .81, B (1) 1.8 x .82, (2) 1.08 x .8, (3) 1.6 x .81, (4) 1.05 x .78, (5) 1.03 x .78. (Plate 6.)
\nObservations - It is well that this interesting and most useful of insectivorous birds is a cosmopolitan as far as Australia is concerned. The sexes are similar in size, both black and white, but the female is readily distinguished by her white face, whereas the male's is black. Bill and eyes are yellowish in both; total length of a specimen about 10 inches. Almost in any locality where fresh water is found, from north to south or from east to west, the familiar pied-plumaged figures of the Grallina may be seen, or its plaintive call heard. However, the bird is only accidental to Tasmania. Gould was of opinion the Grallina was only a partial migrant to Northern Australia, or was not stationary there, departing during the rainy season, that is, the summer. It would be well if this statement were verified.
\nThe hard mud-constructed nests of the Magpie Lark or Grallina always attract attention, so conspicuous do they appear, cemented on to a naked limb. Sometimes several are seen in the same tree, being the homes of successive seasons, for it takes many winters' rains to totally demolish a Grallina's nest. These old homes are also attractive to other birds, such as the White-rumped Wood Swallow (Artamus leucopygialis), and Little Cuckoo Shrike (Graucalus mentalis), the former invariably, the latter occasionally, constructing their own nests within the roomy and secure one of the Magpie Lark. If a clutch of eggs be removed, the Magpie Lark will lay again in the same nest; but a new nest is usually built every year, if not for every brood, of which there are two or more a season.
\nI recorded, 8th November, 1894, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of Victoria, the occurrence of the egg of the Pallid Cuckoo (C.pallidus) in the nest of the Grallina. The nest was taken at Cheltenham by my young friend, Mt. John Sommers, and contained five eggs of the Grallina besides the Cuckoo's egg. For many years Mr. S.W. Jackson could depend on taking sets of pure white eggs, laid by a Magpie Lark, in the Clarence River district. I examined one of these singular sets in Mr. Jackson's collection. \n
During the wet season, 1889, in the neighbourhood of the Lower Murray, where nearly all the adjacent country was under water, some Magpie Larks, so Mr. George H. Morton informs me, elected to nest in certain very odd places. One built its nest on the rail of a swing gate; another upon the top of a post; whilst a third bird selected some iron hooks suspended in an outshed. Mr. C. M. Maplestone, a member of our Field Naturalists' Club, remembers another odd situation for a nest, where the bird reared her young securely - the top of a telegraph pole on the high road between Camperdown and Lismore, Victoria.
\nA friend of mine once observed a reddish-brown tree snake (Dipsas fusca) in the act of taking young from the nest of a Magpie Lark, having had his attention directed to the spot by the terrified cries of the parent birds. When the snake found it was discovered, by the presence of stout sticks whizzing past uncomfortably close to its head, the reptile flattened itself along the limb, as if to avoid observation, or at all events to evade the flying sticks.
\nThe breeding months are chiefly from September to January. Sometimes in Queensland as early as the beginning of August; whilst in the North-west, in March (1897), the natives brought several ones into the camp of the Calvert Expedition near Fitzroy River.
\nThe Magpie Lark is indeed one of the most useful of Australian birds. Dr. N.A. Cobb, the Pathologist of the Department of Agriculture of New South Wales, proved that this bird destroys numbers of species of land molluscs that are intermediate hosts of fluke.
\nReferences
Transcribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 87-88.
Cornelius Desormeaux Saunders and James Francis-Hollings-Frank-Shepherd of London manufactured this suffragette muffineer in 1908; it was registered between 28 March and 7 April in Chester, England. (Crawford 1999, p. 110) As most company records are lost, the exact number of suffragette muffineers manufactured by Saunders and Shepherd (now known as The Saunders Shepherd Group) is untraceable. The existence of six similar muffineers has been confirmed by British researcher Irene Cockcroft. (Cockcroft, 20 June 2008) As Saunders and Shepherd were commercial manufacturers at least one hundred, possibly up to one thousand, muffineers could have been made in order to ensure the commercial viability of the object. (Cockcroft, 9 July 2008)
\nThe placard worn by the suffragette was printed in black or red. Original banners and posters advertising the WSPU 'Votes for Women' movement were printed in red on white, similar to the placards of the Museum's muffineer. In 1908 green, white and purple were adopted as the official colours of the WSPU movement (Crawford 1999, p. 136-7). The colour of the placard print could reference the WSPU colours, or it could be an aide memoir for the owner, to remind them what spice their muffineer contained.
\nThe most likely designer of the muffineer was Mr Arthur Whelpdale, manager and director of Saunders, Shepherd and Co. Whelpdale favoured the production of limited edition novelties reflecting social icons (Cockcroft, 20 June 2008). Muffineers would have been manufactured in batches of 20 to 50 at a time by a team of six to eight craftsmen (Cockcroft, 8 June 2008).
\nSaunders and Shepherd exported items throughout the Commonwealth, and in 1897 established an office at 279 George St, Sydney (Coupland, 15 March 2008). The company's products were retailed throughout Melbourne and Sydney, at stores like Hardy's (Cockcroft, 8 June 2008).
\nThe handwritten addition to the placard text indicates it was in Britain at the outbreak of the First World War, and was therefore purchased in the UK.
\nThe 2003 exhibition at the Women's Library in London Art for Votes' Sake: Visual Culture and the Women's Suffrage Campaign, and the 2005 exhibition New Dawn Women at the Watts Gallery, London both exhibited muffineers' identical to the example in Museum Victoria's collection.
References:The Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition opened on August 1, 1888; it received over two million visitors (MacDonald 2001, p. 42). Victorian and Australian technological, material, and industrial progress were all exhibited, however contemporaries favoured music and art as pastimes indicative of the highest stages of civilisation (MacDonald 2001, 42). The centrality of the orchestra to the Exhibition indicated to a world audience that Australia was capable of rising from its convict heritage to attain an artistic conviction equal to European cultural achievements (MacDonald 2001, p. 48). The Centennial Orchestra was especially convened for the Melbourne Centennial International Exhibition. It was described as 'the most complete instrumental organisation seen in this part of the world' at its premiere in 1888 (The Argus, 1888).
\nThe Centennial Orchestra was led by Mr Frederick H. Cowen, a British Conductor who had accepted the 'very lucrative engagement' as Musical Director for the Centennial Exhibition (Ehrlich 1995, p. 149). Cowen was paid £5000 for the six month appointment (Colligan, p. 214). Cowen was contracted to bring about fifteen good instrumental musicians from England with him, to strengthen the orchestra and lead various sections (1890, p. 260). The Argus reports that the names of the musicians alone were indicative of 'the quality and function of the various instruments upon which they perform' (Argus, 1888). Tympani player Mr J. Munyard was engaged as a local musician (Argus, 1888).
\nThe Argus wrote of the percussion section: 'the drums deserve to be spoken of by themselves on account of the important position they hold in all great instrumental organisations. First stand the kettle drums, consisting of vellum heads stretched over closed metallic vessels.the big drum, the grosse-caisse, with its thunderous boom, has its own effective part to play: but it is the kettledrums, with their accurate intonations, which are prized by the musician when aiming at orchestral effect' (Argus, 1888).
\nReferences
\n1890. The Official Catalogue of the Centennial International Exhibition Melbourne 1888-1889. Melbourne: Mason, Firth and M'Cutcheon.
\nThe Argus. 1888. Exhibition Supplement, 2 August.
\nColligan, Mimi. 1996. 'More Musical Entertainments' in Victorian Icon: The Royal Exhibition Building, ed. David Dunstan. Melbourne: The Exhibition Trustees.
\nEhrlich, Cyril. 1995. First Philharmonic: A History of the Royal Philharmonic Society. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
\nMacDonald, Anna. 2001. Seeing Melbourne: The Centennial International Exhibition and the Cyclorama of Early Melbourne. Masters Thesis, University of Melbourne.
","contentSummary":null,"types":["Historical Narrative"],"authors":[{"firstName":"Harriet","lastName":"Boothman","fullName":"Ms Harriet Beatrice Boothman","biography":null,"profileImage":null}],"contributors":[],"media":[{"type":"image","alternativeText":null,"large":{"width":1457,"height":1203,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/46/391246-large.jpg","size":362569},"medium":{"width":1457,"height":1203,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/46/391246-medium.jpg","size":260290},"small":{"width":606,"height":500,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/46/391246-small.jpg","size":61605},"thumbnail":{"width":250,"height":250,"uri":"https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/content/media/46/391246-thumbnail.jpg","size":14196},"id":"media/391246","dateModified":"2016-05-02T00:21:00Z","caption":"Painting - Herr Schoot Drum Demon, Mr James, Oil, 1896","creators":[],"sources":[],"credit":null,"rightsStatement":"Public Domain","licence":{"name":"Public Domain Mark","shortName":"Public Domain","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"}}],"yearWritten":"2009","parentArticleId":null,"childArticleIds":[],"relatedArticleIds":[],"relatedItemIds":["items/1481435","items/1481458"],"relatedSpecimenIds":[],"id":"articles/2790"},{"recordType":"article","licence":{"name":"Attribution 4.0 International","shortName":"CC BY","uri":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0"},"dateModified":"2021-07-18T03:46:00Z","title":"Elizabeth Delahunty, Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, 1982-2008","displayTitle":"Elizabeth Delahunty, Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, 1982-2008","keywords":["Manufacturing","Photographic Products","Biographies","Managers","Accounting"],"localities":[],"content":"Elizabeth Delahunty, Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd: From Computer Programmer to General Manager Kodak Health Asia Region, 1982 - 2008
When Elizabeth Delahunty completed her degree in computer science in 1981, she wasn't sure where it would lead. There was a great demand for computer science graduates at the time, and Elizabeth chose a job at Kodak Australasia, partly because it offered opportunities to travel. Kodak was renowned for its range of photographic film products, including microfilm and microfiche for record storage, and x-ray film. She did not know then that within a decade, Kodak would embrace digital technology for its business imaging and medical markets.
IT Department
Elizabeth commenced work as a computer programmer in the IT department at Kodak's Coburg plant in 1982. Her job was to develop systems for Kodak's finance, administration and payroll 'so that people could work more effectively in their roles'. For five years she built her career in IT, progressing to systems programmer, then systems analyst.
Kodak Business Imaging
In 1987 Elizabeth joined the Business Imaging Division (later called Document Imaging) as a senior systems engineer. Kodak was beginning the change from film-based record storage to digital technology, providing optical discs for storage and electronic systems for indexing and retrieval. Elizabeth's role was to understand clients' needs at the pre-sales stage, configure software to meet customer requirements and provide after-sales service regarding any software problems. This was an opportunity for Elizabeth to hone her IT skills, but it was also the beginning of her transition from a technical role into a role that focused more on customers. Elizabeth observes:
'I probably learnt more about computers in the Business Imaging Department where I was going out on site working with clients, ranging from all of the major banks ... in their computer rooms and working with their teams to make sure these systems were operating well. ... I really found my niche. It was what I enjoyed doing, going out on site, dealing with the clients, travelling around Australia and New Zealand.'
Elizabeth also worked collaboratively with a large computer hardware firm to sell systems to hospitals and pathology clinics.
Kodak Health
In 1992 the Kodak Health Group was gearing up to assist hospitals with the transition to digital imaging. The group enjoyed a good relationship with clients, including large hospitals and radiology clinics, and were experts in x-ray film technology. They needed to add digital expertise to their team, so Elizabeth was appointed Manager of Digital Imaging Solutions. Her job involved visiting hospital radiology departments to learn about their procedures and requirements, in much the same way as she had previously worked with Office Imaging clients.
New imaging technology included computed radiography, which enabled an x-ray image to be displayed almost immediately on a computer screen at a remote location. Kodak also began developing digital systems for organising workflows and information systems in radiology departments. These were known as Radiology Information System (RIS) and Picture Archiving and Communications Systems (PACS).
Kodak Health faced an increasingly competitive market. Their traditional competitors in the x-ray film market, Agfa and Fuji, were moving into digital health imaging systems, as were the manufacturers of modality imaging equipment, such as Siemens, GE and Philips. Nevertheless there was a rapidly growing market in the Asia Pacific region for Kodak Health products and services. In 1994 Elizabeth set up the Digital Solutions and Marketing Group for Kodak Health to provide marketing and technical support for Kodak Health's Asia Pacific region. She found it exciting getting to know the Asian market.
Elizabeth spent 1997 in Canada in a management development role as Director Strategic Planning for Kodak Health. She returned to Melbourne as General Manager of Kodak Health for Australia and New Zealand, eventually progressing to the role of General Manager of Kodak Health for the Asia Pacific region in 2006.
Essentially the change to digital technology meant the change from supplying goods - mainly film and processing chemicals - to services - software and systems development. As a software specialist, Elizabeth was the first person without an engineering background to run the regional services business:
'That was an experiment to really understand what we could do with the services business to make sure it was going to be a viable business as we moved to digital. And through that period of time across Asia Pacific, which included Australia New Zealand, we tripled the size of that business and we also significantly increased the profits of that business, because we were able to start providing software solutions and software service to our clients as well.
So Health, I always felt, was a jewel in the crown for Kodak... It had successfully made the transition to digital. We still had some analogue products, but we were well on the path to digital. We were competing successfully in the market.'
Carestream Health
In 2007 Kodak sold its global Health Group to Onex, a Canadian firm, which set up a new company called Carestream Health. Carestream took over all of Kodak Health's assets and offered to retain all of its staff and their entitlements. Elizabeth was pleased that one hundred percent of the staff in her region transferred from Kodak to Carestream, as did one hundred percent of the clients. She continued for a year as General Manager Carestream Health Asia Pacific, working in Melbourne.
In 2008 Elizabeth resigned to pursue other interests. She later became CEO of COMRAD, a provider of Radiogy Information Systems.
References
Beale, Nigel, 'The History of Kodak in Australia', 1983 (unpublished manuscript), Museums Victoria Kodak collection.
HT 39812 - Oral History Interview with Elizabeth Delahunty, interviewed by Lesley Alves 3 March 2015.
YELLOW -BREASTED SHRIKE ROBIN
\nEopsaltria Australis, Latham - (175)
\nGeographical Distribution - South Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria and South Australia.
\nNest - Cup-shaped, neat and beautiful in form, constructed of fine twigs, but chiefly bark, with lengthened pieces of outer bark (sometimes two or three inches long) stuck on perpendicularly, outwardly, by means of spiders' web,, and further ornamented, especially about the rim, with lichen; lined inside with a few rootlets and pieces of dead, flat, sword-like grass, or with whole small dead leaves of eucalypts, &c. Usually placed low in the slender fork, or on a horizontal branch of a tree in scrub, by creek or in forest. Dimensions over all, 3-1/2 to 4 inches by 3 inches in depth; egg cavity, 2 to 2-1/2 inches across by 1-1/2 inches deep. (See illustration.)
\nEggs - Clutch, two or three; varies in shape from roundish-oval to longish oval; texture of shell fine; surface slightly glossy; colour varies from light greyish-green to bright, bluish-green spotted and blotched, especially about the apex, with reddish-brown or chestnut and dull purplish-grey. Dimensions in inches of a clutch of round examples: (1) .83 x .65, (2) .82 x .65, (3).82 x .62; of a pair of long examples: (1) .94 X .62, (2) .91 X .63. (Plate 12.) A pair taken in Queensland is smaller in size, light apple-green in colour, somewhat faintly spotted all over with yellowish -brown and dull purplish-brown: (1) .78 x .59, (2) .74 x .61.
\nObservations - Of all feathered forest friends I know of none more attractive than the confiding and shapely Yellow-breasted Shrike Robin (it has become advisable to use the words Shrike Robin because these birds are not truly Robins*). Enter any quiet sylvan nook or deep gully for a while, and there one of these dear birds will surely detect your presence, and, alighting in a pretty attitude on a twig or clinging sideways to the bark of some tree-stem near, will watch your movements. Their lovely nests, too, as forest ornaments, are extremely beautiful.
\nIn the calm autumn evenings, when darkness is coming down upon the forest, it is pleasant to hear the numerous Yellow Shrike Robins in the timber with chirping hisses, unsettled, or rather settling down for the night.
\nHowever, the range of habitat and the varieties of the Yellow Shrike Robin of eastern parts are somewhat perplexing to naturalists. The British Museum Catalogue simply bunches them together, but not without certain qualifications in the shape of carefully selected foot-notes.
\nThis interesting Shrike Robin is at home in nearly all parts of Victoria. Extending its habitat northward, it appears to skip the sub-tropical scrubs of the Richmond and Clarence districts, where its place is taken by E. chrysorrhous (E. magnirostris, Ramsay) reappearing in the drier parts of Queensland, notably about the Fitzroy River, where I procured skins in the Brigalow (acacia) scrub.
\nIn Victoria, although the Yellow Shrike Robin especially enjoys the dark dank recesses of the great forest gullies, it may be observed in more open localities, such as in the belts o coastal tea-tree (Leptospermum) near the sea. I have taken its nest in the dry scrub of the Bendigo district, and once saw a pair of these birds in some acacia brush on the lower Murray near Echuca.
\nNaturally some of the Yellow Shrike Robins exhibit great anxiety when a person approaches a nest with young. They go hopping about with measured pace over the ground, at each hop flattening their bodies, while their pretty yellow breasts cleave to the earth. At intervals the wings are partially extended, and all through the acting is the embodiment of painful despair.
\nMr. Hermann Lau's poetical allusions to the Yellow Shrike Robin are, 'It is early morning, just as the dawn is approaching. Lying half awake, half-dreaming, in my lonely tent close behind the palm wold of Cooyer scrub, I hear a fine, equal, oft-repeated note in the thicket, as if heralding the golden sun, and which fills my heart with thankfulness to my great Creator. The notes emanate from this dear little bird, which also sings its psalm of praise to it is Maker at early dawn (Eopsaltria, the bird's generic name, literally means 'Psalm of Dawn').
\n'The Yellow Shrike Robin builds a nest manufactured out of string-like underbark, lined inside with dry grass and a few withered leaves like those of melaleuca, and usually situated in a three-pronged fork of a small tree. Lays two, rarely three, eggs, and is an early breeder. Cooyer (South Queensland), October, 1833.' It is just possible that Mr. Lau's note may refer to the Yellow-rumped variety (E. chrysorrhous).
\nUsual breeding months September to December or January. In its more northern habitat in mild winters it is said to commence sometimes as early as June. I had through my hands two clutches of eggs taken in Queensland by Mr. W.B. Barnard in July, 18997. Two and probably three broods are reared in a season. Mr. G. E. Shepherd reports the curious occurrence of a double clutch - six eggs in a nest.
\nIn concluding the observations on the common Yellow Shrike Robin, it may be here remarked that the bird figured in Gould (vol. iii., pl .ii.) is referable to the succeeding species (E. chrysorrhous), which differs from the common species in having the rump of a bright yellow colour, whereas E. australis has the same part dull wax olive. Both sexes are alike except that the male possesses a larger bill.
\nWith reference to Dr. Ramsay's doubtful species (E .inornata)* Dr. Gadow is of the opinion that the description is taken apparently from a young or immature bird of E .australis (?) obtained at Rockingham Bay. However, Mr. C.W. De Vis of the Queensland Museum says, 'The validity of the species has been denied without sufficient cause.' Here is an interesting point for field observers to settle.
\nResources
Transcribed from Archibald James Campbell. Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon, Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 311-313.
At Kodak Australasia Pty Ltd, maintenance of the manufacturing plant and equipment was crucial to efficient operations. Kodak's team of tradesmen were responsible for constructing new equipment as well as keeping the plant in good working order.
Thomas Baker began making glass photographic plates in 1884 at Abbotsford. His business grew and evolved, becoming Kodak (Australasia) Pty Ltd in 1920 (Beale p.17). As the plant expanded to include machinery for making roll film and photographic papers, plus a range of other photographic products, the complexity of the operations increased. So did the need for increased technical support. Baker, who died in 1928, left a legacy of self-sufficiency, by setting up workshops and employing tradesmen of every kind to maintain and build the equipment used in the factory (Beale p. 21).
The Abbotsford workshops comprised a carpenters shop with a timber store and breaking down shed, a sheet metal shop, engineers shop, and workshops for pipe fitters and plumbers, painters and electricians.
Jim Healy, who joined Kodak as a maintenance engineer in 1951, was one of a dozen metal workers who looked after Kodak's manufacturing machinery in the mid twentieth century. Part of Jim's job involved maintaining the pumps and other components of the machine used for coating rolls of paper and base material with photographic emulsions. Tradesmen needed to be on hand in case of a breakdown, which, Jim recalls, were not very frequent because the machines were well maintained. Every year the manufacturing plant shut down for two weeks, when most employees took their Christmas holidays. During shut-down the workshops' tradesmen completely overhauled the manufacturing plant, ready for the start of another busy year.
Besides maintaining the factory, the workshops' tradesmen also worked with Kodak's engineers to construct some of the specialised machinery Kodak used. Jim Healy worked on the construction of a machine for slitting the large rolls of film and photographic paper into long strips. There was also an experimental workshop. Jim remembers assisting the engineering draftsmen:
If they'd get an idea to do something, we'd try to make it up to see if it would work before it had been actually manufactured in the machine shop for production use. We made this little coating machine. If they wanted to try a new type of emulsion or test it out instead of going straight into production, we used to run it on this little coating machine.
Sometimes the workshops, with the approval of management, made small items such as letterboxes for employees. These items were known as 'foreigners'. Jim remembers:
You'd sort of start a bit early or cut out your morning tea and do a few things. Of course there was a lot of scrap metal around too, otherwise they used to get rid of it. In the carpenter's shop they'd get a bit of timber out and they'd make a stool and things like that for you. They'd give the apprentices a few of these jobs, away from the standard things.
Kodak's engineers and tradesmen at Abbotsford were in high demand from the late 1950s when they designed and built some of the new plant installed at the new Coburg complex, which opened in 1961 (Healy, Beale pp 117, 121). The Abbotsford tradesmen transferred to new modern workshops at Coburg, where they continued their tradition of providing a high standard of maintenance.
References:
Beale, Nigel, \"The History of Kodak in Australia\", 1983.
Oral History:
Jim Healy, interviewed by Lesley Alves at Melbourne Museum, 12 March 2014.
SCARLET-BREASTED ROBIN (Petroca Leggii, Sharpe - 165)
\nGeographical Distribution - South Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania.
\nNest - Cup-shaped, neat and beautiful; constructed on soft bark, covered with pieces of outer bark stuck on by spiders' web so as to resemble the limb on which the nest is placed; lined inside with fine inner bark and finished warmly with fur, sometimes a feather or two in addition. Usually situated in the strong, upright, forked branch of a sapling or small tree in a retired locality in open forest. Occasionally the nest is placed in the hollow part of a tree trunk. Dimensions over all, 3 inches by 3 inches in depth; egg cavity, 1 ½ inches across by 1 3/8 inches deep.
\nEggs - Clutch, three to four; roundish in shape, but more pointed at one end; texture of shell fine; surface slightly glossy; colour, light greenish-white, much spotted and speckled, especially round the upper quarter, with umber and dull-grey. Dimensions in inches of a proper clutch: (1) .72 x .58, (2) .72 x .58, (3) .71 x .56. (Plate 8).
\nObservations - This lovely-feathered forest gem is a great favourite with collectors, and is fairly dis-tributed from South Queensland round to South Australia, its place being taken in Western Australia by an allied species, P. cambelli (Sharpe). The dress off the Scarlet-breasted Robin is - upper surface, including throat and head, black, excepting conspicuous patch of white on forehead, and longitudinal white bands on the wings; breast and upper part of abdomen scarlet, rest of under surface white. Length, 4½ inches; wing, 2¼ inches; tail, 2 inches; bill, 5/8 inch. The plumage of the female is brownish, the breast sometimes being tinged with red. One never forgets one's enthusiasm over the finding of the first Robin's nest. I well recollect my first find, which happened to be a nest of the Scarlet-breasted species, that I discovered, with the hen bird sitting, in the forked branch of a 'manna-gum' (Eucalyptus), that grew in a secluded part of a bush paddock not far from what is now Murrumbeena, Victoria.
\nMr. A. J. North writes: - 'On the partially cleared land in the dense forest of South Gippsland (Victoria) I have often found the nest of this species by seeing the bird fly into one of the huge, blackened, hollow trunks of eucalyptus, that has been destroyed by fire. The nest is placed about six or seven feet from the ground, on a projecting piece of roughened and charred wood; it is composed of strips of bark, grasses and mosses, securely held together by cob-webs, and lined with hair, fur, feathers, &c., and sometimes with the soft downy fibre of the inner bark of the tree-fern (Dicksonia antarctica).'
\nThe Scarlet Robin's nest, for appearance and situation, is always a picture, but one remarkably so was first brought under my notice by my friend, Mr. J. Gabriel. It was in a cleft in a small dead musk-tree (Olearia) stem. A length of about fifteen inches, containing the nest, was sawn off and made a most beautiful photograph (see illustration). The interesting exhibit was afterwards presented to the Australian Museum, Sydney, where it has been set up with the instructive and artistic 'bird groups'.
\nI have found the egg of the Narrow-billed Bronze Cuckoo (C. basalis) in the nest of the Scarlet-breasted Robin.
\nGould states this Robin usually rears two or three broods in a year, the period of nidification commenc-ing in August, and ending in February; but we may infer that the chief breeding months are from October to December.
\nReferences
Transcribed - Archibald James Campbell. 'Nests and Eggs of Australian Birds, including the Geographical Distribution of the Species and Popular Observations Thereon', Pawson & Brailsford, Sheffield, England, 1900, pp. 134-135.