CHAPTER VII. 

 Popular Australians. 



THE birds best known to most Australians are those 

 common species of a size sufficient to command 

 attention. The smaller birds, speaking generally, 

 are much less widely known. Probably first in 

 order of popularity comes the Magpie, whose familiar out- 

 line, along with that of the Jackass, has adorned picture 

 postcards and souvenir booklets from the time when such 

 were first known in this country. The ferocity (fre- 

 quently quite unnecessary) exhibited by these birds during 

 the nesting season is well-known. One of the writers has 

 vivid recollections of unprovoked attacks by pairs which 

 unfortunately evinced a desire to rear broods in the vicinity 

 of his home. Most boys respect the pluck of the Magpie, 

 nevertheless, and we have known very few cases indeed 

 where one of the birds has been harmed as a result of its 

 ferocity, even when other and more innocent birds have 

 become the victims of the boy with the pea-rifle. Once or 

 twice we have seen a Magpie shot by an angry youth, and 

 on each occasion the perpetrator of the deed was talked to 

 severely by the rest of the company. There were four 

 species of birds which, in our day at any rate, ran little risk 

 at the hands of boys. They were the Magpie, the Jackass, 

 the Redbreast, and the Swallow. The last-named was held 

 especially sacred, and it was universally agreed that ill-luck 

 would befall the person who so much as robbed a Swallow 

 of its egg. So strong was this belief that there was only 

 one Swallow's egg in the whole of the collections in the 

 Meredith district, and the owner of that passed it off to his 

 fellows as an egg of the White-fronted Chat. 



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