Page:The Emu volume 20.djvu/221

 After a search of a few minutes I found a beautiful pair of boldlyblotched eggs with a rather dark background. There was no nest, the eggs being laid amongst some blocks of limestone.

At the Ten-mile well were several pairs. I was camped in a boundary-rider's hut, and at night Stone-Curlews came within a few yards of the door. I think one pair bred about a quarter of a mile away on a limestone outcrop, but I fear the Crows got their eggs. I observed a party of the latter mobbing one of the parent birds. In walking out to the Quoin Bluff, where the Pied Cormorants bred, I twice nearly walked over a Stone-Curlew. I searched in vain for another nest.

Eupodotis australis. Bustard or Wild Turkey.—Frequently seen on Dirk Hartog. and occasionally near the Little Lagoon on Peron Peninsula. On the island I seldom walked from my camp to the homestead without seeing a young male bird. By cautious tracking I often got within a few yards of this individual. At the Ten-mile I met with a party of three—male, female, and a nearly full grown young bird. The male was a very fine bird and exhibited much pale grey in the flight feathers. At the hotel in Denham I was shown several locally-procured eggs.

Demiegretta sacra. Reef-Heron.—A few pairs found around rocky points on Dirk Hartog Island. Near Notch Point a portion of the cliff had been undermined and had fallen forward. Between the fallen mass, weighing many tons, and the cliff was a fissure wide enough to pass easily through. In various cavities were three nests of the Reef-Heron, but only one was occupied at the time of my visit; this contained two incubated eggs (7th August). The sitting bird nearly flew in my face. I had walked silently along the sandy floor of the fissure and surprised her on the nest.

Phalacrocorax hypoleucus. Pied Cormorant.—Two large breeding colonies exist on Dirk Hartog Island—viz., at the Quoin Bluff and at another headland to the north, generally known as "Shag Mia." The Pied Cormorant is one of the most conspicuous birds in Shark Bay, and, if interesting, is generally regarded as a nuisance. One reason for its unpopularity is its habit of perching on the pearling luggers, which are polluted by its limy excreta. Some owners have gone to the trouble of erecting perches in the water in the hope that the birds would prefer them to the jib-booms or gunwales of the luggers; but the birds are so numerous that the nuisance was not much abated by this device. Others, again, resorted to having a cat on board; but this, too, had its disadvantages. Owing to the shallow water the fleet has to anchor nearly half a mile from the shore.

When camped at the Ten-mile well I several times walked out to visit the colony on the Quoin Bluff. The upper part of this prominent headland consists of perpendicular limestone cliff, the haunt of a few pairs of Kestrels. The lower portion of the cliff is a slope at an angle of about 35°. Walking about this slope is not difficult, owing to the earth being soft and ensuring an easy foothold. The Cormorants were nesting here in great numbers, occupying an extent of nearly a quarter of a mile of the face of the headland. The nests, as a rule, were in groups of greater or lesser numbers, and I found and photographed a group of nests actually on the summit of the cliff. The vast majority of nests contained well-grown young, many on