^°J;.^-J Stray Feathers. Z^, 



The White-plumed Honey-eater as a Bee-killer. — Mr. W. 

 M'Lellan, of this town, has some tree-lucerne plants, and just now 

 they are in full bloom. Noticing a large number of dead bees on 

 the ground, he examined them and found their bodies crushed. 

 There were dozens of them. Very soon a solution of the cause of 

 their death was arrived at, for he watched the " Greenies " or 

 White-plumed Honey-eaters {Ptilotis penicillata) snap every bee 

 that came to the blossoms. The birds simply gave the bees a 

 crunch or two and dropped them. — E. A. D'Ombrain. Casterton, 



4/9/05- 



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Eggs of the Ewing Tit {Acanthiza ewingi). — Although the eggs 

 of this species have been described it may be of interest to record 

 remarks about an authenticated clutch of two eggs in my collection, 

 taken by the well-known Tasmanian ornithologist, Mr. E. D. Atkin- 

 son, on the nth October, 1904, near Waratah, Tasmania. The 

 eggs are inclined to be oval in shape, with fine texture of shell, 

 and glossy in appearance. The ground colour is a warmish-white, 

 and is finely freckled with reddish-brown, some spots appearing 

 more indistinct than others, as if beneath the surface of the gloss ; 

 the spots are so thickly accumulated at the larger end that they 

 form a blotch on the apex. A, measures .68 x .50 inch ; B, 

 .66 X .49 inch. The nest was dome-shaped, and typical of the 

 Acanthiza family, and was placed in a small beech {Fagiis cunning- 

 haini) which was growing in the bank of an old quarry. — J. W. 

 Mellor. Adelaide. 



^ ;js ;{i 



Se.\gulls as Insect Destroyers. — During last harvest the 

 crops, particularly those around Jan Juc, and further south of 

 Geelong, were visited with the caterpillar pest. When the crops 

 were ripe for cutting, these caterpillars would raid the farms and 

 nip off the top of the crop, letting the ears of corn fall to the ground. 

 Acres would be stripped in one evening by this pest. They seemed 

 to commence their work just at sundown. A friend who related 

 this to me, and who has a large farm, said the noise made by the 

 caterpillars in nij^ping can be distinctly heard at some distance. 

 One evening, on looking towards his crops, he saw hundreds of 

 Seagulls (the ordinary white Gull, Lartis novce-hollandicB) enter 

 his crop, and attack and devour these caterpillars. Next morning 

 there was not a caterpillar to be seen. My friend told me other 

 birds would not touch the catei-piHars. — Arthur Wilson. Geelong, 



25/7/05- 



* * * 



Notes on Bronze-wings. — \Micn I wrote my notes on the 

 Crested Pigeon [Ocyphaps lophotes) for the April number of The 

 Emu the hen was on her nest, having begun to sit for the last time 

 on or about jrd March, just as the final lot of the common Bronze- 

 wings {Phaps chalcoptera) were out of the nest. Unfortunately I 

 accidentally broke one of the eggs ; however, as the weather soon 

 became changeable and snowy, one was quite enough for the parents 



