30 Ft'oin Magazines, &c. [^K'^juiy 



experiments on Broughton Island will be carried out under every 

 possible safeguard, but what if the bacillus be communicable to 

 birds, and by them transferred to the mainland before its harm- 

 lessness (or otherwise) to living creatures other than rabbits has 

 been determined ? Even assuming the disease proves deadly to 

 rabbits, the community ought to be assured of a far more im- 

 portant negative fact — viz., that it will not hurt anything else — a 

 very difficult matter, it would seem, to settle on Broughton Island. 

 Knowledge of the workings of micro-organisms is not yet out of 

 the empiric stage, and the possible effects of change of 

 environment on Dr. Danysz's bacillus can only be learned by 

 experience, which may be too dearly bought. Then there is the 

 likelihood of time rendering the rabbit immune, so that even the 

 present excuse for the introduction of the disease may fall to 

 the ground, while the countless evil possibilities remain. 

 Ornithologists generally, seeing how many agencies destructive 

 to our native birds are already at work, are likely to be very chary 

 of assisting in this importation of what may prove to be a fresh 

 ^^^' * * * 



Avicultural Magazine. — Dr. A. G. Butler relates his aviary 

 experiences in 1905 in the March number. He bought a pair of 

 Wonga-Wonga Pigeons {Lcitcosarcia picata), and turned them 

 first into a garden aviary, where they built but did not lay. 

 They seem to have rendered themselves unpopular in the 

 vicinity. " I received," says the author, " an impertinent anony- 

 mous letter complaining of the song of the cock-bird, and 

 requesting me to wring its neck or get my son to poison it." 

 Eventually he brought the birds inside and put them in a bird- 

 room, where the female laid several eggs on a platform of 

 branches, through which some of them fell to the ground, and 

 later the hen deserted the nest and died. 



At the Crystal Palace Bird Show the first prize for the Parra- 

 keets was won by a pair of Scaly-breasted Lorikeets. The 

 second prize was awarded to two Mealy Rosellas. Other Parrots 

 shown were King Parrots, Crimson-winged Lories, Barnard, 

 Yellow-naped, Pennant, and Barraband Parrakeets. A 

 Banksian Cockatoo took first prize in the class for larger 

 Parrots. Latterly the Yellow-rumped Finch {Munia fiavipryuind) 

 has been freely imported into England, and specimens exhibited 

 failed to score prizes. A novelty from Australia was a Shining 

 Starling {Calornis vietailica), which, however, is said to have 

 been entirely overlooked by the judge. Australian birds were 

 well forward in the class for foreign hybrids. Here the first 

 prize went to a cross between a Red-rumped Parrakeet and a 

 Mealy Rosella, the second to a Bicheno-Zebra Finch, the third 

 to a hybrid between Barnard and the Yellow-naped Parrakeet, 

 which showed clear evidence of both sides of its parentage. 



