134 ^^'''^y Feathers. [,.^j'u,. 



me this, because, knowing the localities they affected, I knew 

 full well that the members of the feathered family named would 

 not be here until the hand of man had changed the original 

 environment. Now, with further reference to Ibis, we see a pack 

 of them circling about, say from one to two hundred yards up, 

 and judging by their leisurely wheelings they appear to be 

 prospecting the ground. Those who make birds their study 

 find that some exceed man in the two senses of sight and 

 hearing, therefore it lies within the bounds of probability that a 

 flock of Ibis in their wheelings have a set purpose. That 

 purpose is to ascertain if insect life is on the surface of the 

 ground in sufficient quantity to justify a halt. This at best is 

 only an opinion based upon conjecture, and put forward with 

 the hope that naturalists will follow on the track of my crude 

 theoretical deductions. On that head, if we have laid up immense 

 stores of knowledge with respect to fauna and avifauna, we have 

 a great deal to learn yet, but in process of time all that pertains 

 to the ways of birds will be made plain to those who study 

 patiently. — Isaac Batey. Drouin, 1 2/1 1/06. 



* * * 



The Bristle-Bird {Sphenura broadbenti). — In the Geelong 

 Naturalist for March, 1906, Mr. C. F. Belcher gave an account 

 of his observations of this species in the vicinity of Anglesea, to 

 the south-west of Port Phillip. A visit was recently paid by 

 two members of the Bird Observers' Club to the locality, and 

 the present may be taken as supplementary to the above- 

 mentioned article. SpJienura is indeed a remarkable genus. 

 Its habits are akin to those other unique forms Atrichia and 

 Pycnoptilus, which are ground dwellers in the densest coastal 

 forests of Australia. Four species are known — 5. bracJiyptera, 

 in southern New South Wales ; S. broadbenti, in Cape Otway 

 Ranges, Victoria ; S. longirostris and 5. iitoralis, .in south- 

 western Australia. All in the main exhibit the characters that 

 show adaptation to environment — large, powerful legs and feet ; 

 small, feeble wings ; long, bulky tail, to balance the weight of 

 the body as the bird, rat-like, runs through the undergrowth ; 

 and a large, wide-open eye. It is the more remarkable, then, to 

 find small colonies of .S. broadbenti separating themselves from 

 the main habitat and making their way into new and widely 

 different country. From any prominence of the coast about 

 Anglesea a splendid panorama can be obtained of the whole 

 line of this movement. On one hand lie the bold mesozoic 

 brows of the Otway Ranges, dipping precipitously to the sea 

 and rising inland to an elevation of 1,900 feet. A rainfall of 40 

 inches and more clothes their whole mass with the thickest of 

 forest, and in the attendant undergrowth Sphenura broadbenti 

 has its true home. As in a flash the shore line changes about 

 Point Castries into a broad and sweeping beach, with low, poorly 



