INTRODUCTION 



Especially notable is the success achieved by the enthu- 

 siastic authors in the study of the mistletoe-bird, the 

 Swallow Dicaeum, or flower-pecker, of gorgeous plumage. 

 This bird is found through the islands to India. Wherever 

 the bird is found, this mistletoe is found ; and wherever the 

 mistletoe is, there is the bird — a most interesting partner- 

 ship of a plant and bird. Both are absent from Tasmania 

 — evidently Bass Strait was formed before either reached 

 so far south. Messrs. Littlejohns and Lawrence have added 

 to human knowledge by their observations of this bird and 

 its family life. 



It is remarkable how often it happens that there is in 

 Australia just one species of a family well developed else- 

 where. Thus Australia has one stork, one crane, one 

 bustard, one roller, one swan, and one flower-pecker. 



Another family of birds of similar range reaching from 

 India is the wood-swallow, finely depicted on page 151. The 

 wood-swallow, strictly so called, is a stationary bird, but 

 the white-browed and masked species mentioned are 

 migratory birds. 



Bird migration is a branch of bird-lore not so well 

 known to Australians as to the inhabitants of some older 

 settled countries. In our winterless climate, there is not 

 the strong regular migration seen in northern colder lands. 

 Still Australian migrations possibly surpass most others 

 in romantic interest. Fancy the journey between Australia 

 and Siberia made twice annually by not fewer than thirty- 

 five species of our birds ! Members of six of these species 

 even reach New Zealand and return to the Arctic each 

 year. Then there is the fairly regular annual migration 

 north to Queensland, and possibly to New Guinea, of some 

 of our cuckoos, the bee-eater, the roller, and many other 

 birds. There are also partial migrants, such as the robins, 

 which retire to the mountain gullies or to Tasmania to 

 breed, and later return to the houses and towns for the 

 winter. Here, too, must be grouped, though the movement 

 is less regular, the travelling flocks of lorikeets — "green 

 keets" — that follow flowering eucalypts from Queensland 

 to Victoria, just as shearers work south from shed to shed. 



Worthy of record, too, are the irregular nomadic move- 

 ments of quail, cockatoo-parrots, many water birds and 



