56 Australian Birds. 



absolutely tame and t^entle pair of Seneg'al Parrots, who live 

 in the house and have the vvliole establishment to wait on 

 and amuse them. 



The desire for more and more birds ever g'rows, and we 

 hope to add aviaries as time goes on, but space is limited, and 

 the temptation of building anything- which would not be an 

 added beauty to a garden of natural charm and full of precious 

 plants has to be sternly resisted. 



Australian Birds. 



By Wesley T. Page, F.Z.S., M.B.O.U. 



There is no merit attached to the writer for these notes, 

 Sctve that they interested him to visualise vivid pictures of the 

 V ild life of some of the birds which occupy or used to occupy his 

 aviaries — the notes themselves are merely extracts and the pen 

 ot another writer — they came to him thuswise. The writer has 

 only had the fag of compilation, a not uninteresting task. 



A friend recently sent me a book, Wanderings in the 

 Queensland Bush, by W. Lavallin Puxley, and I was so 

 fascinated by these vivid and terse, if incomplete, pictures of 

 Queensland birds, that I felt I must pass them on. 



In the first chapter entitled 77/ r Morning Land, I came 

 across the following : 



" Everywhere grew varieties of gums, and here and there we passed 

 ' dense growths called ' scrub ' by the residents, and golden wattles in 

 " endless variety were scenting the air. ' Strange bright birds ' were 

 " flying overhead with calls and songs unknown to me, and I could hear 

 " in the distance the most beautiful sounds of the Queensland bush — the 



" morning carol of the ' magpies ' (Magpie Lark. W.T.P.) 



" That first afternoon I counted over twenty varieties of eucalyptus, many 

 " of which were coming into flower, and everywhere the pretty grey and 

 ' yellow ' soldier-birds ' flew around me, scolding me and each other in 



" their quarrelsome way And even that first day I noticed 



" the great number of Laughing Jackasses, or Kookaburras, as they are 

 " always called, and that they always seemed to produce their wild laugh 

 " whenever anyone is in a difficulty, like some malignant imp rejoicing 

 over one's troubles. I heard it that afternoon when I had sat down 

 '* to rest upon an ant-heap which I had taken for a heap of soil which had 

 ' been sifted. 1 was idly passing the tiny stones through my fingers 



' when I noticed a number of the ' beef ants ' as they are called, rushing 



