Vol. XXII 



192: 



:2 J Stray Feathers. 73 



Egret from Extinction in Egypt? •'In 1911, when the last little 

 colony of Egrets was in danger of being wiped out by plume 

 hunters, guards were ])laced around the one last nesting-place, 

 and Major Flower organised a great series of \illage meetings, 

 where the following lesson was well rubbed in: 'Egrets kill the 

 cotton worm that ruins your crops. The plume hunters kill the 

 Egret for gain and take the money out of the country. See to 

 it.' The appeal succeeded. 



"From a few captive Egrets in the Zoological (jardens fifteen 

 Egrets were hatched in 1913. ]\Iajor Flower estimates that these 

 fifteen have now 5000 living descendants, and the fifteen ancestor 

 birds are still ali\e and breeding. The one protected colony has 

 grown to 200,000, and the birds have gone back to the old nest- 

 ing-places from which the ])lume hunters exterminated their 

 forebears. The most wonderful ])art is this : The 200,000 birds 

 have saved the Eg>'ptian cultivators £2,000,000 in the i)ast season 

 alone by keeping down the cotton worm. Major Flower [)ointed 

 out that it would seem as if each bird were worth £10 a vear to 

 Egypt. They work across a field hunting down the j)est." 



Is Albinoism Connected w ith Sex Characteristic? — A speci- 

 men of the Small Yellow-tailed Til-Warbler {Aeaiithica chry- 

 sorrhoa) was recently obtained by me at Parwan, Victoria. Its 

 plumage first attracted attention when the bird was seen feed- 

 ing on insects on the ground with several other members of its 

 own species. Its coloration indicated that its plumage was 

 metamorphosing to a phase of albinoism. When dissected, two 

 experts were unable after minute examination to sex the bird. 

 It would be interesting to know whether there is anything ab- 

 normal with the sex organs in cases of albinoism in birds to prove 

 whether this alteration in the colour of the plumage is a perverted 

 sex characteristic, and that nature hoists the danger signal in 

 the altered coloration of the i)lumage. — A. H. E. Mattixgley, 

 €.M.Z.S., Alelbourne. 



Birds Seen on the Sydney=Melbourne Train Route.— Having 



had the opportunity of travelling this route fairly often, I think 

 that there has been, during the last year or so, a very distinct 

 increase of the birds seen from the train. In one hour's run 

 on the southern side of Goulburn, I noted the following species 

 from one side of the train only, covering about 35 miles of 

 country : — Magjjies were particularly numerous, and well dis- 

 tributed right along the line between the two capitals. White- 

 fronted Heron (Xotophoyx nov(r-hoUandi(e) (9) ; Xankeen 

 Kestrel iCcrchneis cenchroides) (5) ; Rose-breasted Cockatoo 

 {Cacatita roseicopilla) (This species was fairly numerous fur- 



