Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/139

water-hole about sunset on a warm evening, you may shoot a great number. There is a great variety of wild ducks, and teal. Snipe are plentiful in the western country at the latter end of winter and beginning of spring. The Australian snipe is a larger bird than the common gill snipe of the British Islands, and is, I believe, more nearly akin to what is called the solitary snipe. Quails are abundant all over the country. White cockatoos are good eating, but are watchful, shy birds. Besides these, which are interesting in a culinary (or perhaps it would sound better to say in a sporting) point of view, there are thousands of parrots, parroquets, and lories of various species, and of every colour in the rainbow. It has been said that there are no singing birds in Australia. This is not the fact; and I believe it was originally said to finish an antithesis, that as the flowers had no scent, the birds had no song. There are many undistinguished little birds that warble very sweetly. There are perhaps no professionals, like the lark, the nightingale, and thrush, of the British Isles; but there is very good amateur music amongst them. The robin-redbreast is worthy of particular mention. It is a beautiful little bird, with black and grey body, and bright scarlet breast; also the sky blue and black wren, known as the superb warbler. There are also numbers of swallows, which are so familiar, that it is difficult to keep them out of the huts. They differ from the European swallow in having more of a bluish tint in the dark parts on their backs, and a kind of brick-dust colour about the throat. They also warble very sweetly. There is a crow in Australia exactly similar to a rook, with this exception, that they