202 From Magazines, S^c. [,st Jan. 



side, so that it fell over the eggs and hid them from sight when the 

 mother was from home. The presence of this water-weed at some 

 distance from a dyke caused me to stoop and examine it closely, 

 and thus I discovered the eggs. Whether this was a wilful attempt 

 to deceive on the part of the bird may be open to question. 

 Eggs deposited in nests on or in the ground, or among pebbles 

 or ground litter, are usually mimetic in colouring and extremely 

 difficult to distinguish from their surroundings ; but, unhappily, 

 they are more liable than those built higher up to destruction by 

 stoats and other ground-frequenting vermin. 



"It is extraordinary how men who become obsessed with a 

 theory will try to strain every known fact into its service. The 

 fact that the egg of our common Cuckoo not infrequently 

 resembles the eggs of its foster-mother is assumed to be with the 

 object of deceiving her ; but when we know that by far the greater 

 number of Cuckoos' eggs in no wise resemble the eggs among 

 which they are deposited, this notion at once disproves itself. 

 Nobody really knows why some Cuckoos' eggs are such admirable 

 copies of those with which they are placed, but it has been 

 suggested that if a Cuckoo is reared by a Hedge-Sparrow or any 

 other bird, she will probably lay in the nest of that bird, and that 

 similar feeding for many successive generations may affect the 

 colouring of the eggs. I don't know, and that is about as far 

 as most of us will ever get in explaining many of Nature's secrets ; 

 and if the truth is ever revealed, we shall discover that many of 

 the explanations suggested are miles away from it." 



Correspondence. 



DISTRIBUTION OF AUSTRALI.\N BIRDS. 



To the Editors of " The Emu." 



Sirs, — My attention has been directed to Mr. Frank E. Howe's 

 letter * about the lack of knowledge regarding the geographical 

 distribution of our species. Mr. Howe furnishes for " corrections 

 and omissions " a hst of 27 species, or, rather, mostly sub-species. 

 If Mr. Howe refers to their names or equivalent names in the 

 " Official Check-list of the R.A.O.U." I think he will find that 

 all the localities (States, at least) that he has mentioned are 

 recorded, save in one doubtful instance. 



Regarding the Friar-Bird {Tropidorhynchus corniciilatus) being 

 found at Ferntree Gully (Vic), Mr. A. J. Campbell f records that 

 he took a nest with eggs in that locality in 1870. May I ask 

 where is the reference for Tyto longimembris walleri? The use of 

 bald, Cerberus-headed, previously-unheard-of names may prove 

 a serious drawback in Australian ornithology. — Yours, &c., 



Melbourne, 20th November, 1915. A. G. CAMPBELL. 



* Emu, vol. XV., p. 71. t •• Nests mid Eggs," p. 433. 



