DEFARTAEiNT OF AGRICULTURE. 

 NE^ SOUTH WALES. 



Some Useful Australian Birds. 



INTRODUCTION. 



The birds and animals of Australia won my affection in earliest boyhood, 

 and the matter of their protection, for both economic and less material 

 reasons, has appealed to me ever since. Like all biid and animal lovers, I 

 look forward to the day when we may see the existing Acts simplified and 

 their application enforced by some recognised authority, but that the issue 

 must depend finally upon the popular attitude to the subject seems to be 

 obvious. Unless the people themselves are awakened to the beauty and 

 value of our fauna, no Act, however perfect, can be of much use. 



The protection of our native fauna must start from an economic basis, not 

 a sentimental one. First, show the man on the land the economic value of 

 the bird or beast ; demonstrate that they work for him by devoui-ing 

 destructive insects, or have a value as game, and he will not allow their 

 wanton destruction, and you will need neither policeman nor warden to 

 enforce the clauses of the act. Then let the teacher come along and show our 

 rising generation the beauty of form and colour, and the place in the woods 

 and fields of each living creature. He will soon awaken a sympathy with 

 the sentimental aspect of the question. Then our birds and beasts will be 

 protected simply because they are birds and beasts, doing no harm but 

 adding to the beauty and cheerfulness of the surroundings. 



Even now, we less often see strings of birds' eggs, collected by a mis- 

 guided student of nature, festooning the master's study, or — though the 

 factor of changing fashion must qualify our optimism — the ladies adorning 

 their hats with the more or less grotesquely-stuffed skins or heads of birds 

 that have been unfortunate enough when alive to be good looking. If the 

 fashionable lady with heron plumes in her hat thought of the nestlings left 

 to starve to death because their poor mother had some fine feathers on her 

 head, would she wear them for a single day ? There are many side issues in 

 a matter of this kind (some of which I have tried to point out in these notes) 

 which are not taken into consideration by many people. 



To protect our animals and birds in a practical manner, from both a 

 scientific and an economic point of view, we must know something about 

 the habits of the creatures we are protecting, so that we do not include 

 any species that the man on the land can prove to be injurious. We would 

 do well to look round and see what is happening in other parts of the world. 

 Though many countries have had game laws in force for hundreds of years. 



