NATURAL HISTORY OF SOUTH AFRICA 



be consumed every day by the nestling birds alone, 

 and the parent birds would necessarily have to 

 procure a further supply for their own needs. It 

 can thus be realised what a colossal work this one 

 rookery of ibises was doing for man. 



Without the ibises successful agriculture would 

 be impossible in Australia. When grasshoppers are 

 scarce the ibis feeds chiefly on a fresh-water snail, 



which is the intermediary 

 host of the dreaded liver 

 fluke that destroys large 

 numbers of sheep. 



" What is everybody's 

 business is nobody's busi- 

 ness " is a very true saying. 

 In the instance of the 

 ibises in Australia we see it 

 explained, for, notwithstand- 

 ing the immense services 

 rendered to the individual 

 and the State as a whole, 

 people actually visited these rookeries and collected 

 the eggs in cartloads. An instance is mentioned of a 

 party in 1912 having gathered so enormous a quantity 

 of eggs that they were unable to take them all away, 

 and left 4,800 eggs to rot on the ground. Bird 

 protection laws are useless unless the people of the 

 country actively assist in helping to enforce the laws. 

 An agitation is got up, and a public law is made, 

 interest lapses. No combined and sustained efforts 

 are made to have the law enforced. No trouble is 



When we kill the parents the 

 bahy birds perish miserably. 



44 



