228 Royal Australasian Ornithologists' Union. \_i^"^Un. 



(amenta) from the bunyas. Looking up, after some difficulty 

 he would discover several Parrots busily engaged in attacking 

 these on the branches of the pine. Breaking some of the flower 

 cones open, he would find here and there amongst the male 

 flowers the same larvae seen in the crops of the Parrots. The 

 Parrots were, in fact, breaking these " cones " in pieces in search 

 of the larvae. Dr. Jefferis Turner was able to state that the 

 larvae were not lepidopterous, whilst Mr. Carter believed them to 

 be almost certainly coleopterous. Though the Parrots were 

 breaking off numbers of these flower " cones," they were probably 

 protecting many more of next season's ones from the depredations 

 of these insects. They were, in fact, almost certainly playing 

 a useful part in enabling, indirectly, the bunya pines to set their 

 seed and so rejuvenate the forest. This, surely, is rather an 

 unusual part for one of our Parrots to play. 



A feature of the flora of the Bunya Mountains was the juxta- 

 position of belts of dense timber and jungle with areas of grass- 

 land and occasionally scattered eucalypts (of the Eucalyptus 

 tereticornis group). The line of demarcation between the two 

 was absolutely sharp. The areas covered by one or the other 

 did not appear to be influenced by site or other physical causes, 

 nor was Professor Richards able to explain their respective 

 situations on geological grounds. Also, the suggestion that the 

 open spaces represented areas of forest that had been fire-swept 

 and had then been grassed over did not seem feasible. Another 

 explanation advanced was that the forest type was a recent 

 invasion, still in progress, and that the grassy areas, with their 

 scattered gum-trees, represented the type of vegetation of many 

 years ago, as yet not all replaced, but remaining as islands and 

 belts. On these remaining grass-lands the forest might be 

 considered as encroaching on all sides by slow degrees and direct 

 extension. Tall trees on the edge of the forest would give shade 

 for the under-shrubs {Solanum, &c.) to grow and replace the 

 grass beneath them. Through these under-shrubs would grow up 

 the seedlings of forest trees, to repeat, when mature, the slow 

 process of extension to which they themselves owed their exist- 

 ence. An interesting means by which such extension might be 

 considerably hastened may be attributed to birds. The various 

 Bower-Birds and Fruit-Pigeons feed on the native figs (Ficus 

 macrophylla, Desf., F. eugenioides, F. v. M., and F. watkinsiana, 

 Bail.) The frequency with which these fig seeds germinate high 

 up in forest trees shows that some of the fruit-eating birds can 

 pass the seeds through the intestine without injuring their 

 germinating power. In the case of the two Bower-Birds present 

 (the Satin and the Regent), and the Cat-Bird, their short and 

 very voluminous intestines frequently showed almost perfect figs 

 even near the rectum. It is highly probable that these birds 

 are one of the chief sources by whicli the figs are distributed. 

 The fig seeds, being deposited in some lodging-place on a tree, 

 germinate, and send roots downwards round the trunk of their 



