Page:The Emu volume 2.djvu/238

 (White-bearded Honey-eater).—Few in number, but more easily found among cultivated flowers than among the native.

(Yellow Wattle-Bird).— One pair noted feeding on a flowering blue gum tree.

(Yellow-tipped Pardalote).—Common only where gum trees exist.

(Forty-spotted Pardalote).

(Swallow).—Common.

(Tree Martin).—Found among the gum trees.

(Ground-Lark).—Common in the pastures.

(Wood-Swallow).—A few pairs arc found in the timber.

(Sacred Kingfisher).

(Pallid Cuckoo).—Occasionally heard.

(Fan-tailed Cuckoo).—Occasionally heard.


 * (Narrow-billed Cuckoo).—One specimen shot.

(Bronze Cuckoo). It is noticed that the female Cuckoos are silent and very shy, while the males of the smaller species whistle, during the nesting season, at all times of the day, sometimes rivalling one another from adjacent tree tops.

, var. (Black Cockatoo).

(Gang-Gang Cockatoo).

(White Cockatoo).

(Green Parrakeet).—This species is one of the few of this genus having the immature plumage differing from the adult. The adult Green Parrakeet of King Island is very large, measuring 15½ inches in length. The back is black, with indigo-green edgings to the feathers; the under surface greenish-yellow, with under tail coverts washed with crimson. The young birds, probably until three years of age, are a uniform smudgy olive-green, excepting the blue on primaries and cheeks and the crimson on forehead, which, however, are not so bright as in the adult. November is the nesting season.

(Blue-winged Grass-Parrakeet).

(Brush Bronze-wing).—A few are found in scrubby areas.

(Painted Quail).—May be flushed in short scrub.

(Slate-breasted Rail).


 * (Bald-Coot).—Seen running about on weedy marshes.


 * (Coot).—In flocks on the larger lagoons.

(Pied Oyster-catcher).—This species is found on the sandy beaches nesting among loose seaweed. Large young ones were seen early in November.

(Black Oyster-catcher).—This larger species is not so common, and lives mostly among the rocky parts of the coast. At one place, an old resident affirms, a pair of these birds has lived and reared young each season for 25 years at least.