Page:Handbook of Western Australia.djvu/75

Rh of wallaby on the Abrolhos, more than 30 miles from the coast, suggests the probability of depression, as well as upheaval of the coast line; the opossum is plentiful in the woodland districts.

Of reptiles the guana and lizard are found, with several species of snakes, both land and water, the bite of which is poisonous; and some, especially to the North, are constrictors.

The principal land birds of West Australia are the emu, the bush turkey, a species of bustard, the gnow, a gallinaceous bird remarkable for piling its eggs in a conical heap with leaves, and not sitting to hatch them. The great eagle hawk frequents the rocky cliffs and smaller birds of prey the rocky plains, cockatoos, black and white, parrots and parroquets, pigeons and quails are common, and in the North the pheasant cuckoo. The birds of the Colony are more remarkable for beauty of plumage than for their powers of song, yet the wattle birds and some others have melodious notes, but the bush is more often disturbed by the screeching of parrots, cockatoos, and magpies, and at night by the sad note of the weelow. The water birds are: the black swan, still numerous in some of the Southern waters of this Colony, formerly throughout it. The British Officers who first visited the Swan River were astonished at their number, but suggested that the time might come, as indeed it has already, when their absence would make it doubtful why the river should have been so named. The pelican, several species of duck, and many sea fowl frequent the coast and islands; to the North these are so numerous that there are large deposits of guano. Gallineaux are abundant in the Lake district, and sometimes migrate Westward, and there are several kinds of waders.