^2 Mattingl?:y, Phmdeved for their Plumes. I ^ 



Emu 

 I Oct. 



containing young. What a holocaust ! Plundered for their 

 plumes. What a monument of human callousness ! There were 

 50 birds ruthlessly destroyed, besides their young (about 200) 

 left to die of starvation ! This last fact was betokened by at 

 least 70 carcasses of the nestlings, which had become so weak 

 that their legs had refused to support them, and they had fallen 

 from the nests into the water below and had been miserably 

 drowned ; whilst in the trees above, the remainder of the 

 parentless young ones could be seen staggering in the nests, some 

 of them falling with a splash into the water as their waning 

 strength left them too exhausted to hold on any longer, whilst 

 others simply stretched themselves out on the nest and so 

 expired. Others, again, were seen trying in vain to attract the 

 attention of passing Egrets which were flying with food in their 

 bills to feed their own young, and it was a pitiful sight indeed 

 to see these starvelings with outstretched necks and gaping bills 

 imploring the passing birds to feed them. What a sickening sight ! 

 how my heart ached for them. How could anyone but a cold- 

 blooded, callous monster destroy in this wholesale manner such 

 beautiful birds, the embodiment of all that is pure, graceful, and 

 good. 



In one tree at the heronry the nests of the Plumed Egret 

 {MesopJwyx phimifera). Egret {Herodias tinioriensis), and Little 

 Cormorant were seen. In another large tree a photo, was taken 

 of two young Plurned Egrets and one young large Egret together 

 in the same nest. These three birds were the sole survivors of 

 several broods of both species which had nested together in the 

 same tree. They had evidently sought one another's company 

 because all the balance of the nestlings had expired through lack 

 of nourishment, their parents having been shot by the plume- 

 hunters, or, rather, " plume-plunderers." Not satisfied with 

 pictures of these nestlings, whose skin was a peculiar leafy-green 

 colour, I determined to try to get a further series, and having 

 found another tree containing several Little Cormorants' 

 nests, intermingled with those of the PIui^cr Egret, I donned 

 the climbing irons, to save the time necessary to adjust the rope 

 ladder, and commenced climbing up the bulky trunk of the red 

 gum tree, which became as I ascended more and more 

 unsuitable for climbing with the irons. After scrambling about 

 25 feet up the trunk, my arms being at full stretch across the 

 tree-barrel, I suddenly felt an acute pain in the back of my hand, 

 which became almost paralysed. It appears that I had knocked 

 off the tree-trunk the nest of a hornet, which forthwith retaliated 

 on mc. The sudden shock of the sting almost caused me to let 

 go my flimsy hold. However, during the next step upwards my 

 climbing irons slipping, and my right hand, paralysed by the 

 hornet's sting, refusing to grip some bark, which was the only 

 hand-hold available, I fell down " swash " into the water below 



