^°g„6^'] From Magazines, &tc. 1 75 



the 6th July the male joined the female on the nest, and later in 

 the day the parents emerged with a brood of seven chicks. 

 The young grew apace, and were able to fly in about 10 days. 

 During incubation the male was rarely far from the nest, and 

 whenever the hen came off to feed he would join her and offer 

 her any delicate morsel he chanced to find. Here in Australia 

 those observers who keep Brown Quails in captivity find the 

 male occasionally becomes very excited when his mate leaves 

 the nest, and often beats her most shamefully. The writer 

 recollects an instance in his own aviary, where the female was 

 treated so shamefully that she finally deserted her clutch and 

 sought refuge in the thick branches of a tree. 



While on the subject of Quails, the Director of the Zoological 

 Gardens (Mr. D. Le Souef) informs us that Stubble Quails 

 {Cotiirnix pectoralis) have been nesting freely round Melbourne 

 this season, and many nests have been discovered during the 

 cutting of crops. At the Gardens both eggs and young were 

 found. Some of the former were placed in an incubator and 

 hatched, while the young birds captured are being successfully 

 reared. 



Ornithology and Civilization. — From the introduction 

 to an article on the breeding place of the Black-tailed Goeurt 

 and Black Stork, which Herr F. Lindner contributes to the 

 January-April (1904; number of the OrnitliologiscJies falirbnch, 

 we take the following, which is not without its lessons for 

 us : — " The study of ornithology is becoming yearly more 

 difficult. Certainly, ornithological literature has latterly been 

 increasing enormously in volume. Beside a great number 

 of books and booklets, well-intentioned, but for the most 

 part not owing their appearance to any pressing necessity 

 for it, we are blessed to-day with so many periodicals 

 that only people with plenty of time and money can 

 read them all. Undoubtedly if there were fewer it would 

 be better. There is a large over-production in the domain of 

 ornithological publications, and one has to buy much chaff with 

 the corn, much that is valueless and superfluous with the useful 

 and interesting. The incurable splitting-up that is always being 

 cheerfully carried on through incessant founding of special 

 journals and club-organs has, as a natural reverse side, for its 

 inevitable consequence the lowering and impoverishment of 

 their contents, and tends to the useless squandering of strength, 

 time, and money in ornithological pursuits. ' Not many things, 

 but nmch ! ' An ornithologist with an itch for writing loses 

 him.self to-day in diffuseness, in trivialities, and matters beside 

 the subject, whereas the ' old masters ' of the classical period of 

 ornithology, with all their painstaking keenness in the observa- 



