230 Obituary Notice. [snd^ April 



together, and their extreme rapidity of flight, yet not one ever made a 

 mistake and ' cannoned ' against its neighbour ; in and out they ghde, 

 circle within circle, and each circle counting thousands ; all seem to be 

 moved by one spirit of unity, and they swoop and turn, rise and fall, as if 

 directed by an invisible hand. The roar from their wings, as a larger flock 

 than usual rose, was really deafening. The Ducks paddled to the centre of 

 the water, and the Herons and Spoonbills sailed away to neighbouring trees, 

 evidently annoyed at this noisy interruption of their quiet habits. The 

 sight was one never to be forgotten ; it was a red-letter day among the 

 many such days that a ' bush naturalist ' can get in Queensland. Incredible 

 as the numbers were on this occasion, they were as nothing to the millions 

 of ' Passenger Pigeons ' as described by Audubon and Wilson in America. 

 I should think that on the whole of earth's surface no family of birds can 

 surpass the Columbia in numbers. Never but this once has it been my good 

 fortune to see such excessive numbers at one time. Generally speaking a 

 waterhole is chosen for a favourite drinking-place that is free from much 

 timber, with a good, firm, gradually sloping 'shore' to the water. This 

 gives plenty of room for their eccentric habits. I came across such a place 

 one day, about 50 miles from the scene just spoken of, and was surprised to 

 find it, as it were, planted all round with gum-tree branches. I could not at 

 first make it out at all ; these bushes were stuck into the mud close to the 

 water, and were about the height and the distance apart that gooseberry 

 bushes are usually grown. It did not require the footprints, quite fresh, of 

 blacks to let me know it was their work ; but I thought the children had 

 done it in their ' play about.' Seeing a rude sort of gunyah at each end— 

 the hole was about 100 yards long — I rode up, and then the mystery was 

 explained by the heaps of Pigeons' feathers lying about. I afterwards had 

 the pleasure of watching the lalacks in this place catching them. It is thus : 

 The blacks, well supplied with light boomerangs, conceal themselves, one 

 in each gunyah, and wait patiently till the Pigeons come. They, with their 

 usual impetuosity, after some preliminary circhng, swoop down to the water, 

 the little bushes confuse them, momentary disorganization ensues, they try 

 to rise again, but their unity of spirit is broken, and they are a whizzing, 

 buzzing mob of rabble. This is the time waited for by the blacks, who, 

 springing to their feet, with eyes dilated, muscles quivering with wild 

 excitement and savage satisfaction, hurl boomerang after boomerang into 

 the seething mass before the astonished pigeons even know that their arch- 

 enemy is upon them. The whole scene did not take two minutes of time, 

 and yet there lay dead and wounded some four dozen birds." 



Notes and Notices. 



Corrigenda. — In the last issue, page 163, line 2, for 

 " NOVEAU " read " NOUVEAU ;" page 165, line 35, for '' cyanops'' 

 read " cyanopiis." 



" From a negative by Messrs. Standish and Preece, Christ- 

 church," was inadvertently omitted from the portrait of the late 

 Capt. F. W. Hutton, which appeared as a frontispiece in the last 

 number of The Emu. 



High Prices. — It will surprise bird-owners to discover that 

 the Gouldian Finch when first imported by Abrahams realized 

 ;^iO per pair, and BatJdlda ruficauda £"6. — Avic. Mag. 



Foxes ! — A landowner (who shall be nameless) 27 years ago 

 liberated near Melbourne 6 pairs of foxes " just for sport." 



