88 Stray Feathers. [xsf'oct. 



been washed away. The same year I found a Native Com- 

 panion's nest near the Wannon on 12th December, which is the 

 latest I have ever known for that bird here. — G. P. Tait. 



Hamilton, 30 //'o/. 



# * * 



Photographing Herons' Nests.— Photographing in "the 

 tree-tops is not an easy task. If a person acquainted with 

 photography remembers how difficult it is to focus and photo- 

 graph animal nature on terra firma, he can readily understand 

 how awkward and how handicapped he would be were he 

 minus an arm and a leg when engaged in this operation. But 

 to be so handicapped on mother earth is simply play to photog- 

 raphy in mid-air in the giddy heights of a tree-top — ''flora 

 infirmar Besides being viinus an arm and both legs, which are 

 necessarily occupied to their utmost capacity maintaining the 

 equilibrium in the tree, one has to contend with the swaying of 

 the limb also. In this unstable posture there is but one hand 

 available to adjust the camera and affix it to the bough, and 

 the adjustment of the focus is rendered all the more awk- 

 ward since the climber is trembling and almost breathless with 

 his exertions — that is, provided he has climbed some distance — 

 and is also very often half-blinded with either perspiration or 

 fibrous dust dislodged from the bark of the tree. — A. H. E. 



Mattingley. 



* * * 



Useful Birds. — Mr. Geo. Graham, of Scott's Creek, near 

 Cobden, Victoria, furnishes a note in illustration of the value of 

 our insectivorous birds. During the autumn in his district, 

 there was a plague of black crickets, which did serious damage, 

 but their ravages were largely checked by the effi^rts of their 

 bird enemies, among which were Wood-Swallows (Artanius sor- 

 didiis) in hundreds, White-fronted Herons {Notophoyx novce- 

 Jiollandice), White-fronted Chats {EpJithianura albifrons), Pipits 

 {Anthus australis), Kestrels {CercJineis cenchroides), Laughing 

 Jackasses {Dacelo gigas), White-backed Magpie {Gyninorhijia 

 leuconota). Spur- winged Plover {Lobivanellns lobatiis), and 

 Stubble Quail {Coturnix pectoralis). It is perhaps not generally 

 known that the Stubble Quail can vary its usual diet of seeds, 

 but the crops of several which were examined were found to 

 contain plump crickets. As bearing on the great question of 

 migration, Mr. Graham remarks that the Wood-Swallow above 

 mentioned is in his district very regular in its time of departure 

 — about the first of May — and, although in May of this year the 

 season was like summer, and the crickets were at the egg- 

 bearing stage, when they would form tempting morsels for in- 

 sectivorous birds, yet the Wood-Swallows did not prolong their 

 sojourn in the slightest degree. — W. J. STEPHEN, Hawthorn, 

 6 '9 07. 



