^iQls^^'J Mattingley, More About Herons. 155 



birds, we paddled off to the home of the White Egrets. En 

 route I managed to creep on to some fully-grown young Nan- 

 keen Herons that had just left the nest for their first outing, and 

 I obtained a picture of them as they perched on the limb of a 

 fallen tree, awaiting the dainty morsels of food which their 

 parents brought them from time to time, and which they be- 

 sought their offspring to take from them, encouraging them to 

 do so with a chuckling, purring expression of parental affection. 

 Some of the larger eucalypts contained as many as 9 or 10 

 nests of these birds, and as we paddled under these trees the 

 young birds, in their excitement at being disturbed, rained down 

 on us a heterogeneous supply of extraneous matter in which 

 yabbies and frogs were in predominance. 



Stray Feathers. 



A Rare Malurus. — It may interest you to know that I 

 found the Purple-crowned Wren {Malurus coronatiis) very 

 numerous on the small rivers between Turkey Creek Telegraph 

 Station and W^yndham. This is a rare bird on the Fitzroy. — 

 J. P. Rogers. Fremantle, W.A., 20/1 1/07. 



Brown Kingfisher and Snake. — Whilst on official duty 

 at Brandy Creek, in the Buln Buln district, Gippsland, one 

 morning last summer I experienced a pleasure which I had long 

 looked for. I noticed a Laughing Jackass perched on a stump 

 about 12 feet high. He was looking very serious, and turning 

 his head from side to side. Suddenly he made a dive into a 

 patch of bracken, and about two seconds later rose in the air 

 with a snake between 2 feet 6 inches and 3 feet in length. He 

 held it by the head and tail, and in its contortions it was forming 

 the figure 8. The bird flew to a limb on a tree about 40 feet 

 high without much effort. Unfortunately, owing to my having 

 to catch a train at Warragul, which I heard whistling out of 

 Drouin, I could not wait to see how the Jackass despatched his 

 prey. — M.C. Leckie, Inspector of Board of Public Health, Mel- 

 bourne. 



* * * 



" A Key to the Birds of Australia."— Referring to Mr. 

 T. Carter's criticism in the last issue,* Mr. Robert Hall intended 

 no discourtesy in holding over publication of the suggestions of 

 Mr. Carter, meaning that they should in twelve months' time 

 form the basis of a supplement to the distribution in areas 9, 8, 

 I, as collectors were in the field. The supplement is as under, 

 being mainly from the published report of Dr. Ernst Hartert, 



• Ldui, vii., p. 9y. 



