An Australian Bird Book: A Pocket Book for Field UseLeach, John Albert
Science
An Australian Bird Book: A Pocket Book for Field Use
Leach, John Albert
Birds -- Australia
The Brush-tongued Parrots, or "Lorikeets," are a purely Australian
family. Some of these are very common at times in flowering eucalypts,
even in the public gardens and streets. The Blue Mountain Parrot, very
common at times, is a giant of the family. It has been described as
a "noble bird, gorgeously apparelled." Its vernacular name of
Blue-bellied Lorikeet has been altered to Blue Mountain Lorikeet.
We found these birds nesting in the big sugar-gums bordering Warunda
Creek, Eyre Peninsula. They keenly and noisily resented our curiosity,
and screeched much as we tried to discover them amongst the green
foliage. Though so gaudy, they were picked out with difficulty.
This bird was very troublesome in my garden at Bengworden, near
the Gippsland Lakes, where, when the apples were about the size of
marbles, they tore them to pieces to get the developing "pips." In
common with the other members of the family, they have a swift, direct
flight, and screech much when flying. The "Green Keets," generally
called "Green Leeks," which are so very numerous at times, are often
accompanied by two other Lorikeets, the Little and Purple-crowned
Lorikeets. These green birds hang, head down, among the eucalyptus
leaves, and brush up the honey from the flowers with their brush
tongue. They follow the flowering of the eucalypts from district to
district, and since the eucalypts flower at irregular intervals, these
birds are not so regular in their movements as Swifts, Snipe, Curlews,
Cuckoos, and other migratory birds. For this reason the birds may be
absent from a district for some years, and then suddenly appear again
in great numbers.
Cockatoos are almost confined to the Australian region. This includes
the islands north-west of Australia out to Wallace's line, passing
between Celebes and the Philippine Islands, Celebes and Borneo, and
between the small islands of Lombok and Bali, east of Java. These
islands, though but fifteen miles apart, "differ far more from each
other in their birds and quadrupeds than do England and Japan. The
birds of the one are extremely unlike those of the other." Another
authority says that the faunas of Bali and Lombok are more unlike
than those of South America and Africa. Bali has Woodpeckers, Barbets,
Bulbuls, and Black and White Magpie-Robins, none of which is found
in Lombok, where we find Screaming Cockatoos, Friar-birds, and other
Honey-eaters, and the strange mound-building Megapodes and numerous
other remarkable birds. This narrow strait is over 1000 fathoms in
depth, and is probably one of the most ancient and most permanent
dividing lines in the world. Instead of being united to Asia, it is
probable that Australia has been more recently joined to New Zealand,
South America, and South Africa. Only one Cockatoo transgresses
Wallace's line to the west, and that is found in the Philippine
Islands; evidently it has spread there from the adjacent part of the
Australian region.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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