6 



BIRD NOTES AND NEWS. 



of very bad weather a sum of £g 6s. 4<i. was 

 realised for the Society, including donations, 

 Mr. O'Grady defraying all expenses. 



Another especially interesting meeting was that 

 held at Kinnoull Church Hall, Perth, on March 6th, 

 kindly arranged by Miss Alice Anderson. A most 

 able and interesting lecture was given by the Rev. 

 Harcourt M. Davidson, of Dundee ; and appropriate 

 songs, illustrated by lantern slides, were a feature 

 of the programme. 



The Rev. J. W. Henderson, Kinnoull Church, who 

 presided, made an earnest appeal for further local 

 support for the Society, and the Hon. Local Sec, 

 Mr. J. Carey, enrolled the names of several new 

 subscribers. 



The free proceeds from the lecture, £2 10s., 

 have been sent to the Society, in addition to the 

 amount realised by the sale of pamphlets and 

 picture post cards. 



THE PLUME SALES. 



At the last sale for 1905, held at the Commercial 

 Sale Rooms on December 12th, the principal 

 feature was the large number of bird-of-paradise 

 feathers and skins offered, these numbering 3859 

 skins light plumes, 282 dark, and 5715 various. 

 Nearly all were sold and at higher rates. The 

 miscellaneous birdskins included 757 Impeyan 

 pheasants ; quill and flight feathers of albatrosses ; 

 crested pigeons ; and the usual consignment of 

 brilliant birds from the tropics. 



The following are the figures relating to "osprey" 

 feathers and paradise plumes at the six sales in 

 1905 : — 



Osprey. „ n 



(packages.) Birds-of-Parabise. 



February 265 5296 



April 295 6144 



June 210 2000 



ami 20 "packages' 



August 239 5564 



October 296 7278 



December 320 9856 



and 300 packages skins. 



It is difficult to estimate the number of birds 

 (herons and egrets) represented by the " osprey " 

 feathers, as packages vary greatly in quantity. 

 Taking a low average and allowing for a percentage 

 of unsold feathers re-offered, the figures indicate 

 a total of at least 150,000 birds killed, in the 

 breeding season, for the London plume market. 



The first sale of 1906 was held on February 13th. 



The catalogues included 8508 bird-of-paradise 

 skins, most of which were sold, and 327 packages 

 of "osprey" feathers, 165 of these being East 



Indian. Of Impeyan pheasants there were only 70 

 (apparently the unsold from the December auction, 

 and these were bought in. Among the "various'' 

 birdskins offered by one firm were over 6000 terns 

 from Japan, some 15,000 parrots, 1645 owls (in 

 addition to heads, wings, tails, quills, and " pieces : ' 

 of owls) ; and from the West Indies and South 

 America came orioles, tanagers, cardinals, crested 

 pigeons, trogans, humming birds, canaries, etc. 



THE LYRE BIRD. 



The following charming word-picture of the Lyre- 

 Bird in its home in the Australian bush is given 

 in a letter written by a young Australian naturalist, 

 living in Victoria, to Mr. W. H. Hudson, who 

 kindly allows its reproduction here. The Lyre- 

 Bird, the most beautiful of all Australian birds, 

 and found only in New South Wales, is, like 

 other indigenous birds and animals of the country, 

 becoming very rare, and bird lovers are urgently 

 pressing for its complete protection in order to save 

 it from extermination. 



" I had to visit a wild and remote gully in 

 the heart of the Dandenong Range, in order to 

 study the Lyre-Bird at home. These noble 

 birds are fast becoming as extinct as the Dodo, 

 owing to the ravages of foxes (introduced), and 

 the cupidity of tail hunters, who ruthlessly destroy 

 the male birds for the sake of their glorious Lyre- 

 like tail feathers, which command a ready sale at 

 5s. each in Melbourne. I, therefore, considered 

 myself fortunate in discovering a nest containing 

 a half-fledged young one, which gave vent to ear- 

 splitting cries when disturbed, bringing the frantic 

 mother to within a few feet of us, where she 

 remained, running up and down the swaying frond 

 of a giant tree-fern, uttering anxious clucking 

 notes the while, and her long drooping tail- 

 feathers of rich golden copper colour, gleaming 

 like burnished metal in the stray sunbeams 

 which filtered through the leafy canopy of the 

 forest trees. The nest was built in a fairy dell, 

 wherein grew musk and sassafras of fragrant 

 leaf, amid groves of tree-ferns thirty feet in 

 height, whose dark green fronds, rayed round their 

 brown trunks, formed a cool screen from the hot 

 sun. Through this lovely glen a shallow mountain 

 stream rippled over mossy boulders, and the 

 dense humid atmosphere had caused a mantle of 

 greenness to be spread over everything. The 

 trunks of the trees and fallen logs were bearded 

 with long strands of golden-green moss, while high 

 up in the branches grew immense Staghorn 

 ferns, or Polypodium, and at their base the 

 earth was carpeted with ferns of many species, 

 the delicate maidenhair fringing the limpid 

 stream. A big tree fern had fallen across 

 the creek, and upon this natural bridge, but 

 resting against the trunk of another fern tree, 

 growing alongside the prostrate one in mid-stream, 



