74 ^^^"■y Feathers. [ ,,f "oct. 



the summer. I found many of them dead, probably owing to 

 the want ot green grass. 



" I collected a little Rainbow Pitta {Pitta iris), such a lovely 

 bird. They are plentiful about here, usually in the thick jungle. 

 Crows are not numerous. Curlews and Large-billed Stone- 

 Plovers {OrtJiorJianipJius magnirostris) are common at night." — 

 Edwin Ashby. "Wittunga," Blackwood, S.A. 



From Magazines, &c. 



Alexandra Parrakeet. — Mr. Herbert Astley writes from 

 Italy to The Avicultural Magazine (May) that his hen SpatJwp- 

 terus alexandrcs was then sitting on five eggs in a nesting-box 



in his aviary. 



* * * 



Birds at Olinda. — The Victorian Naturalist for August 

 contains a pleasantly written paper by Mr. C. L. Barrett on the 

 " Bird Life of the Olinda Creek," near Lilydale, Victoria, illus- 

 trated with photos, of the dancing mound and nest of the Lyre- 



Bird {Meniira victorice). 



* * * 



The Young Cuckoo. — A note in The Victorian Naturalist 

 for July states that on i6th October, 1905, Miss B. Keartland 

 noticed two Superb Warblers {Mahirus cyaneiis) and two Yellow- 

 rumped Tits (Acanthisa chrysorrhoa) feeding a young Bronze- 

 Cuckoo. 



The Laughing Jackass. — Mr. John M'Alpin, of Yea (Vict), 

 writing to Mr. Donald Macdonald (" Nature Notes," Argus, 

 31/8/06), states : — "I was not aware that the Jackass was fond 

 of small birds until lately. A large Jackass caught and killed a 

 Black-and-White Fantail, and flew off with it, followed by two 

 other Jackasses. They evidently thought it a prize. If those 

 birds are in the habit of killing the useful little birds it is about 

 time the law was altered which protects them." 



Isolation v. Natural Selection. — A paper in TheAukAox 

 July, by Dr. Leonhard Stejneger, discusses the causes which have 

 brought about the several sub-species of American Hairy Wood- 

 peckers. His theory is that the existing differences were caused 

 not so much by natural selection (the usually accepted origin of 

 such differences) as by " environmental stress" — that is to say, 

 isolation — acting on plastic materials. At the same time the 

 writer does not deny that some auxiliary influence on the 

 development of the various forms may have been exercised by 

 natural selection. 



