144 ^"""y ^'^f'"''- [:sfa:.. 



The weather was clear and warm, as it had been for some time. 

 Two days afterwards, on the afternoon of 30th April, a thunder- 

 storm came up from north (the quarter from which the birds 

 had been flying), and lasted until evening, with very vivid 

 lightning and heavy rain. When I lived in the Table Cape 

 district (Tas.) these birds were very plentiful in the forest 

 country, and it was a maxim among the settlers that when 

 they made their appearance in the clearings rain was not 

 far away. Their mournful notes, well represented by the 

 native name, " Wa-ee-lah," were frequently heard, and the 

 peculiar noise, much like crosscut saws working in a log, which 

 they kept up all the time their powerful beaks were tearing off 

 the bark from the ringed trees in order to get at the large wood- 

 grubs underneath. The ability of the Black Cockatoo to foretell 

 an approaching change appears to have been noted by early 

 settlers on the Australian continent, as William Howitt, in a 

 little book published in the fifties of last century, says that they 

 were regarded there as proclaimers of rain. — H. Stuart Dove, 

 F.Z.S. West Devonport (Tas.) 



Correspondence. 



(Read at R.A.O.U. Conversazione, 6th August, 1919.) 

 Dear " Birds of a Feather," — ^The Ornithologists' new year — 

 August — has again come round, and, happily, in the " year of 

 Peace." What are you going to do for the science ? 



Mr. Mattingley, Mr. Barrett, and myself have been appointed 

 a sub-committee to encourage speciahzation. I would commence 

 by asking you who are "collecting-observers" not to take any 

 Cuckoos' eggs this season, but, instead, let the eggs hatch out, 

 and make observations for the proper identification of the parents. 

 I think none of us has yet proved things, but has much " taken it 

 for granted " which species has laid the strange eggs in the foster- 

 bird's nest. For instance, which Bronze-Cuckoo lays the 

 speckled egg and which the olive egg ? I think this has not been 

 proved since the days of the Ramsay Brothers, of Sydney, and 

 we should have our own confirmatory evidence. Then let us 

 make a start this season. — Yours, &c., 



A. J. CAMPBELL. 

 Surrey Hills (Vic), i/8/iq. 



THE IXIDEXTIFIED PETROICA. 



To the Editors of " The Emu." 

 Sirs, — In The Emu for July Mr. Frank E. Howe credits me, 

 in my description of this bird, with the statement that the 

 Petroicas " do not nest in immature plumage." However, in 

 stating that they (the Petroicas) " do not nest in this peculiar 



