Page:Victoria, with a description of its principal cities, Melbourne and Geelong.djvu/245

 Not less than 645 species of birds are known to inhabit Australia, and, doubtless, many more remained to be added to the list, even from the settled districts to say nothing of those parts of the country as yet unexplored by collectors, and an exceedingly large proportion of the Australian birds is peculiar to this country. Upwards of 400 inhabit the colony of New South Wales. Beginning with the birds of prey, there are twenty-six eagles, hawks, &c., and ten owls. In the interior, the wedge-tailed eagle, or eagle-hawk, is well known as destructive to lambs, sickly sheep, and even calves, while it also feeds on carrion, sometimes collecting in numbers, vulture-like, about a carcase. Its audacity is in proportion to its size and strength. A friend of ours has even seen one drag an opossum, from the spout of a tree where it had taken refuge. The large white-headed fishing-eagle of Australia may daily be seen about the harbour, flying round in large sweeping circles, and scanning the water below for fish and floating garbage, even among the shipping, and finally bearing off its quarry to some favourite tree in a secluded spot at a distance.

Of the 400 incessorial or perching birds of Australia, we can only particularize a few. Of seven Australian swallows, one, the spine-tailed swift, the largest known member of the family, is occasionally seen about Sydney, and attracts attention from its great size, and the extreme rapidity of its flight. It is only known as a bird of passage; an individual has even been killed in England, in 1848; but, as Gould says, "whence it comes or whither it goes, has not yet been ascertained." We believe, however, from personal observation during a series of years that not only this bird, but the Australian swift, the bee-eater, and other migratory birds in Australia, come from and return to New Guinea, according to the season. Thus, in the month of December we have seen flocks of the spine-tailed swallow coming from the northward, at Cape York, passing low over Albany Island, where we have shot the bird within a few yards of the graves of Niblett and Wall, two of the members of Kennedy's last expedition, whose bones rest there.